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
Coverage Litigation
Me and LaRue, and Business Insurance Too
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…
Why You Should Hire a Lawyer With A Black Belt in Commercial Arbitration
By Stephen Rosenberg on
Posted in Arbitration, Coverage Litigation
You know, the term martial arts is really just an umbrella for a whole range of more particular styles of physical combat, and the diversity is actually kind of fascinating. What does this have to do with anything? Well, I was reminded of this by this post from the Adjunct Law Prof on a ruling…
The First Circuit on Professional Liability Insurance
What SCOTUSBLOG does for the Supreme Court – maintaining a steady and running review of goings on at the high court – Appellate Law and Practice does for the First Circuit, only with a little more humor and quirkiness than SCOTUSBLOG employs. A regular check of Appellate Law and Practice ensures that you don’t miss…
Commercial Arbitration and the Federal Arbitration Act
By Stephen Rosenberg on
Very few things can still reduce me to an adolescent rumble of uttering very, very, very cool, and it is particularly remarkable when something in the practice of law has that effect. These three posts, from Workplace Prof, Adjunct Law Prof Blog, and SCOTUSBLOG had that effect on me when I came in…
Massachusetts Insurance Coverage Law in a Nutshell
I wanted to pass on to you a case out of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio that was issued about the time I was trying a patent infringement case last month, and which I wasn’t able to comment on then as a result. With a little more time…
Insurance Coverage Litigation and the Elastic Concept of Ambiguity
By Stephen Rosenberg on
When I was taking constitutional law in law school, I had a professor who liked to say that what standard of review the Supreme Court applied to certain types of issues depended on whether or not the justices wanted to uphold or instead overturn the statute before them; a more cursory level of review guaranteed…
Animators at Law and Sophisticated Trial Graphics
I recently had a fun virtual meeting, by conference call and downloads, with Animators at Law, who produce 2D and 3D trial graphics, and in particular with Christine McCarey, a former in-house counsel and now the company’s national director of business development. I have been at this long enough to remember when trial graphics…
The Tripartite Relationship and the Attorney Client Privilege
By Stephen Rosenberg on
One of the more unwieldy of legal fictions is the so-called tripartite relationship among the insured, the insurer, and the defense counsel defending the insured against the claim. Duties run every which way in the relationship, and this beast is at its most cantankerous when one gets into the question of how the attorney client…
Hurricane Katrina Coverage Litigation
By Stephen Rosenberg on
Unlike the postman (neither sleet nor rain, etc.), I am easily diverted from my appointed rounds. This is another way of saying that contrary to what I said in my last post, I am not returning right away to a run down of a handful of interesting ERISA decisions handed down in the First Circuit…