Hinshaw Releases Second Edition of Duty to Defend: A Fifty-State Survey
Loading and Unloading Under GL and Auto Policies: 2022
Prior & Pending Litigation
What is a Damron Agreement?
Careening race cars, missing diamonds, and gold treasure provide some of the backdrop for insurance issues that courts had to decide this past month. We begin in Pennsylvania where the state’s high court reined in some loose...more
Second Circuit Holds That Malpractice Insurer Has No Duty to Defend or to Indemnify Lawyer Because Of Business Enterprise Exclusion- Associated Industries Insurance Company sued its insureds, a lawyer, and his former law...more
When it comes to insurance contracts, the devil is often in the details, as a recent Oregon Court of Appeals case illustrated. In The Final Table, LLC v. Acceptance Casualty Insurance Co., an individual was seriously injured...more
Mental state, in some form, is the common theme running through our first three cases this month. The Fifth Circuit decides whether directors and officers of an ice cream company, accused of breaching their fiduciary...more
The United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, applying Illinois law, has held that an insurer had a duty to defend an insured condominium association and its board members against an underlying...more
The United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, applying Illinois law, has held that an insurer’s complaint plausibly alleged that the insured had breached the terms of the policy’s cooperation clause....more
The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit has held that, under Indiana law, when a liability insurer breaches its duty to defend, the defense costs that the insured incurs in the underlying matter are...more
The United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida, applying Florida law, has determined that two lawyers professional liability insurers had a duty to defend where the underlying complaint included at...more
The Northern District of Illinois has held that claims brought under the Illinois False Claims Act (“IFCA”) are not uninsurable as a matter of Illinois law. The insured, a telecommunications company with $2 million in...more
The United States District Court for the District of South Dakota, applying South Dakota law, has held that an insured healthcare system was barred from settling without its healthcare liability insurer’s consent where the...more
Applying Maine law, the United States District Court for the District of Maine has held that a legal professional liability insurer had a duty to defend an insured attorney against a suit alleging sexual assault of a client,...more
On November 23, 2021, the Montana Supreme Court issued an almost unanimous decision in National Indemnity Company v. State of Montana, a ten-year-old coverage dispute arising from claims against the State of Montana alleging...more
Applying Arizona law, the United States District Court for the District of Arizona held that an insurer that breached its duty to defend bears the burden of demonstrating that an allocation of defense costs between covered...more
California courts strictly enforce an insurer’s duty to immediately commence defending its insured. The insurer’s delay in doing so, even if the delay is short, constitutes a breach of this important duty. In fact, California...more
United States District Court Orders Insured To Produce Certain Pre-Litigation Documents But Not Others Deemed Work Product 99 Wall sued Allied World seeking coverage under a property policy for water losses at 99 Wall’s...more
Claims-made liability insurance policies typically require the policyholder to notify the insurer of a claim within a set amount of time — typically during the policy period, or within a specific period of time after the end...more
Miller Marital Deduction Trust v. Zurich American Insurance Company, — P.3d –, 2019 WL 5304862; First Appellate District Court of Appeal, Division Three, Case No. A155398 (October 21, 2019). In Miller Marital Deduction...more
McMillin Homes Constr., Inc. v. National Fire & Marine Ins. Co., 35 Cal.App.5th 1042 (2019); Fourth Appellate District Court of Appeal, Division One, Case No. D074219 (June 5, 2019). McMillin Homes Construction, Inc....more
In Century Surety Company v. Dana Andrew (Dec. 13, 2018), the Nevada Supreme Court issued an opinion regarding whether, under Nevada law, the liability of an insurer that has breached its duty to defend, but not acted in bad...more
Sit back and grab your popcorn. I’m about to tell you about a recent ruling involving a fight over a class settlement with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in a junk fax TCPA class action. While this story might sound like it’s...more
The Holding - In Teufel v. Am. Family Mut. Ins. Co., 244 Ariz. 383, 419 P.3d 546 (2018), the Arizona Supreme Court recently held that a Contractual Liability Exclusion in homeowner policies did not apply to a claim for...more
Under California law, the insurer has the heavy burden of establishing there is no potential for coverage of an underlying claim. With respect to the duty to defend, “[t]o prevail, the insured must prove the existence of a...more
Fewer and fewer companies in California have insurance coverage for “wage and hour” claims, i.e. claims for failure to pay overtime, failure to provide meal and rest periods, and failure to provide accurate itemized wage...more
Scope: The “Comparison Test” - The defense obligation arises when a defense is needed: at the outset of the suit. It follows that, unlike the duty to indemnify (which depends on the “true” facts as they are determined in...more
In Hyland v. Liberty Mutual Fire Ins. Co., No. 1:15-cv-01264-JES-JEH, 2017 WL 3388161 (C.D. Ill. Aug. 7, 2017), the U.S. District Court for the Central District of Illinois granted plaintiff’s motion for summary judgment for...more