This Spring, cases from Florida and Wisconsin reaffirmed the general proposition that a liability insurer’s duty to defend must be determined from the specific claims in the underlying complaint against the insured, and not from facts available from other sources. Both cases dealt with contamination or pollution conditions, and, in both instances, the courts held it was the nature of the underlying claim, rather than the actual presence of a pollutant, that established ... Keep Reading »
Duty to Defend
On Remand, District Court Expands Subcontractor Exception to Rule Against Coverage for Faulty Workmanship
Recent decisions from the U.S. Courts of Appeal for the Tenth and Second Circuits have partially overturned a longstanding rule against coverage for faulty workmanship under commercial general liability policies. The rule, known as the “fortuity doctrine,” was based on insuring clauses that provided coverage only for claims arising out of an “occurrence,” and which defined “occurrence” to mean “accident.” For many years, courts held that claims based on the insured’s ... Keep Reading »
It’s All About the Pleadings: Florida Court Expands Insurers’ Obligation to Provide Separate Counsel for Insured Co-Defendants
The duty of a liability insurer to provide a defense for its insured is controlled by the contents of the pleading against that insured: the duty can arise on the basis of allegations that establish grounds for coverage, even if the insurer knows those allegations to be false. If, in those circumstances, the insurer reserves its right to dispute coverage (and especially if, in doing so, it relies on a theory that would prejudice the insured’s position in the underlying ... Keep Reading »
All in Good Time: Another Court Refuses to Allow Plaintiff to Force an Early Resolution of Insurer’s Rights Under a Liability Policy
Like insurance companies, plaintiffs’ class action attorneys do better when they know how to manage risk. Bringing a case to trial can involve an enormous investment of time and resources, and most firms can’t afford to do it if there’s a significant chance the defendant will not be entitled to liability coverage at the end of the day. For that reason, avoiding an early resolution of coverage issues can sometimes help an insurer negotiate a more favorable settlement. ... Keep Reading »
In Faulty Workmanship Cases, Insuring Clause Dogs are Wagged by Exclusion Tails
In Greystone Const., Inc. v. National Fire & Marine Ins. Co., 661 F.3d 1272, 1289 (10th Cir. 2011), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit articulated an important rule for construing commercial general liability policies: [A] CGL policy ‘begin[s] with a broad grant of coverage, w[hich is then limited in scope by exclusions. Exceptions to exclusions narrow the scope of the exclusion and . . . add back coverage. But it is the initial broad grant of ... Keep Reading »
Too Much of a Good Thing: Household Product Triggers Pollution Exclusion, Because “Quantity Matters”
Pollution exclusion clauses began appearing in commercial general liability policies when federal laws began making businesses liable for the cost of massive environmental clean-ups—like the remediation of “Volatile Organic Compounds” that was recently at issue in Chubb Custom Ins. Co. v. Space Systems/Loral, Inc., No. 11-16272 (9th Cir. March 15, 2013). A recent Colorado case presented the issue of when the grease that goes into your bacon double cheeseburger becomes a ... Keep Reading »
In the Last Frontier, Insurers Shouldn’t Leave Defendants Out in the Cold
An Alaska politician once said of the folks she grew up with, "We grow good people in our small towns, with honesty and sincerity and dignity." But those virtues don’t exactly leap out of the story behind Williams v. Geico Cas. Co., No. S–14089 (Alaska Jan. 25, 2013), which mostly has to do with alcohol, selfishness and stupidity. At the climax of this sordid tale, a party to the lawsuit argued that an insurer’s refusal to offer policy limits for a release of only one ... Keep Reading »
Federal Court Refuses to Let Insured Shoot First, Seek Coverage Later
at Sandy Hook Elementary School, the issue has been taken up passionately by both sides of the dispute over gun violence. Did the murderers in Newtown and Aurora kill in large numbers because they were able to fire many shots quickly, and without reloading, as Sen. Lautenberg believes? Or, as a Wall Street Journal editorial recently suggested, can the proliferation of mass killings be more reasonably attributed to the practice of designating “gun-free zones” in ... Keep Reading »
If a Tree Falls, and No Court Held an Insurer Must Defend It, Is There a Breach of Contract?
A liability carrier claims a policy does not require it to defend a particular lawsuit. A federal district court agrees, and the insurer stops providing a defense. Five years later, a Court of Appeals reverses. Did the insurer breach its insurance contract? In what appears to be a case of first impression, a federal court in California has said “no,” because holding otherwise would “tip the scales too far in favor of the insured.” ... Keep Reading »
Excess is Enough: Courts Decline to Expand Liability of Excess Insurers
Judicial opinions that purport to construe “the policy as a whole” are often bad news for insurers, but two recent decisions used that analysis to defeat plaintiffs with novel arguments for making their excess insurers liable for losses within the primary layer. Intel Corp. v. American Guarantee & Liability Insurance Co., No. 692, 2011 (Del. Sept. 7, 2012), arose out of antitrust litigation against the chip manufacturer, in which Intel paid more than $50 million ... Keep Reading »
- « Previous Page
- 1
- …
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- Next Page »