I love these stories on big firms, who are used to billing by the hour, using contingency fee cases to boost the bottom line. When I say that, I am not taking pot shots or being sarcastic – instead, I appreciate the fact that, on a large scale, they are doing what smaller predominately billable
I have counseled insurers and represented them in litigation on bad faith claims handling and Chapter 93A cases for pretty much the entire modern era of insurer bad faith law in Massachusetts. My very first trial as a first chair was a Chapter 93A bad faith failure to settle claim against a major insurer (I
When I was in college in D.C. lo these many years ago, a friend of mine’s uncle took us out to dinner at the Watergate complex (still the only time I have ever been inside it). He had been a tech guy at HBO in its early days, when he quit on the spot over
Many of you know that I have been writing about the intersection of the insurance industry and climate change for almost long as this blog has existed. I have long been interested in the economic relationship between the two, as the industry responds to climate losses and, in so doing, forces homeowners and other insureds
The relationship between climate change and the insurance industry has been a favorite hobbyhorse of mine for over a decade, since I learned that Lloyd’s was closely studying the potential impact of climate change on insurance rates, profits, underwriting and the like. Good for the industry, I said then in my blog, for taking a
The Washington Post has a fascinating article today on the operation of the NFL’s disability claim system for addressing benefits due for neurological impacts from professional football. Although likely behind a paywall, the article is certainly worth a read. Its point is really that the system, which is the outcome of a negotiated class action
This is a quick note on a new Chapter 93A decision by the Massachusetts Appeals Court that I want to highlight for a couple of reasons. Chapter 93A, for those readers from out of state, is Massachusetts’ consumer protection and unfair business practices statute. The statute is a very powerful weapon in the right case
This is a fun but dry (don’t worry – you will get the joke in a second) decision from the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court on whether rainwater that accumulates on a roof constitutes “surface waters” for purposes of an insurance policy. Of more practical value to most lawyers and of more interest to me, however
Jacklyn Wille of Bloomberg Law, who by now knows more about ERISA litigation than most ERISA litigators, has an interesting article out (you can find it here; subscription may be required), concerning court approval of a “$1.7 million class settlement benefiting participants in an Advance Auto Parts Inc. subsidiary’s retirement plan . . .
I suspect that no one understands as well as an ERISA litigator the extent to which the rules governing judicial decision making either determine the outcome of a dispute or, at a minimum, dictate a specific and limited range of potential outcomes as well as establish the respective odds of each. In the context of