Coverage Litigation

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You see, everything at the end of the day is about insurance. Risk sharing that allows smaller businesses to move forward with operations, plaintiffs’ decisions over who has enough insurance to warrant suing, even the economic dislocations of climate change – everything comes back to the insurance industry. Here’s a great example, and an amusing…

One of the more ambiguous and gray areas in insurance coverage law is the question of when an insured is or should be aware that a claim is on its way. The law recognizes that this can certainly occur at some point before the insured actually is handed suit papers by a process server, but…

Here’s a neat little story out of the Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly today on a Massachusetts Appeals Court decision holding that the surety on a construction contract does not cover, under the construction bond it issued, punitive damages awarded for the bad faith conduct of a principal of the construction company covered under the bond. Although…

Here’s a tasty little tidbit for you insurance coverage junkies out there. Law.com has this interesting article on a ruling as to the number of deductibles that apply to suits alleging lung injuries from the flavoring used in manufacturing microwave popcorn. As the article explains, a New York state appeals court has found that the…

What is the sound of the internet clapping? Who knows. A healthy round of applause is due, though, for prominent insurance coverage blogger David Rossmiller, who has spent the last several months on his blog -aptly named the Insurance Coverage Law Blog – detailing and dissecting the insurance coverage disputes arising in the aftermath…

I wanted to return for a moment to a decision from the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court from earlier this month, Allmerica Financial Corporation v. Certain Underwriters at Lloyds’ London, in which the court held that an excess carrier that had issued a follow form policy to an insured was not bound by or required…

Here’s a dog bites man story: the joint defense privilege exists in Massachusetts. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the topic, the joint defense privilege allows parties on the same side of the dispute in a multiparty litigation to share information amongst themselves and their various attorneys without waiving the attorney client privilege.…

There are some who believe that insurance policies are by definition ambiguous – mostly lawyers who solely represent policyholders for a living – and others, on occasion including judges, who sometimes seem to believe that unless a policy specifically excludes something, than it is either ambiguous and provides coverage or simply provides coverage because the…

There is an article in Business Insurance magazine this week, the June 25th issue, on the Supreme Court accepting review of the LaRue decision, in which I am quoted. The article is here – subscription required – and if you read it, you will note that it ends on my comment that I expect the…