This week the D.C. Circuit and Seventh Circuit issued decisions addressing a question that has been hotly debated by class action lawyers on the plaintiffs’ and defense sides: whether the Supreme Court’s decision on personal...more
In Aquino v. United Property & Casualty Company, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court addressed the responsibilities of an insurer under a homeowners policy to an innocent insured homeowner when her fiancée — a coinsured...more
A federal court in New Jersey recently dismissed state law claims brought by third party plaintiffs, including the insured’s broker, against a Write Your Own insurance carrier. The claims at issue in Residences at Bay Point...more
In Clarabelle Wheeler v. The Standard Fire Insurance Company, 2016 WL 1164651 (W.D. Va. Mar. 23, 2016), the insurer argued that the insured failed to give “prompt notice” of the loss as required by the policy’s notice...more
Someday the editors of this blog will have to create a “Hall of Shame” for most witheringly wrong-headed pieces of first-party property insurance jurisprudence, and a clear contender is a federal decision out of Illinois that...more
In Capital City Real Estate, LLC v. Certain Underwriters at Lloyd’s, London, No. 14-1239 (4th Cir. June 10, 2015), the Fourth Circuit Court ruled that a Maryland federal court erred in granting summary judgment to Certain...more
On March 19, 2013, the United States Supreme Court issued its decision in Standard Fire Ins. Co. v. Knowles, ____ S. Ct. ____, 2013 WL 1104735. Writing for the unanimous Court, Justice Stephen Breyer wrote that a...more
Whether a putative class representative can block removal of his case to federal court by stipulating that class damages will not exceed the jurisdictional minimum under the Class Action Fairness Act (“CAFA”) will be...more
A familiar debate involving alternative methods of statutory interpretation erupted again at the Supreme Court on Monday, January 7, 2013....more