Wow, I guess this is really Seventh Circuit week here, with, I guess, a particular focus on the jurisprudence of Judge Easterbrook, whose opinion in Baxter I discussed in my last post. This time, I turn to his decision from Wednesday in Federal Insurance Co. v. Arthur Andersen, which strikes right at the intersection
Duty to Defend
Want to Learn More About the Tripartite Relationship?
By Stephen Rosenberg on
One of the widest read and linked to posts I have written recently was this one here providing the law of the so-called tripartite relationship in thumb nail fashion. Interest in this topic surprises me to a certain extent, because very much the point of the post was that, despite all the seminars and publications…
Insurance Coverage, Tuberculosis, and that Guy on the Plane
By Stephen Rosenberg on
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…
The Three Rules of the Tripartite Relationship
By Stephen Rosenberg on
We’ve been a little ERISA heavy here for awhile now, somewhat to the detriment of the insurance litigation half of the blog’s title, simply because of the range of interesting events that have taken place under the ERISA rubric lately. While all that was going on, though, a particularly good collection of articles on different…
We Take Requests: More on Excess Insurance
By Stephen Rosenberg on
A loyal blog reader wrote in recently noting a glaring omission of this blog, notably the absence of a subcategory heading over on the left hand side of the blog collecting case law and comments on excess insurance issues. I have added the menu option over there, so readers can find excess cases easily. And…
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…
Ten Exciting Moments in Insurance Coverage Law, 2006
By Stephen Rosenberg on
Here is an article insurance coverage litigator Randy Maniloff is publishing in Mealey’s early next month discussing Randy’s picks for the ten most important insurance coverage decisions from across the country over the past year. The cases cover issues ranging from the absolute pollution exclusion to junk faxes, and a range of topics in-between.
While the…
Attorney’s Fee Awards, and the Duty to Indemnify
I have written before about the American Rule – which requires parties to a lawsuit, in the absence of a fee shifting statute or contractual agreement, to pay their own legal fees – and the exception under Massachusetts law that runs in favor of insureds who prevail in coverage cases against their insurers. The Supreme…
A Fine Piece of Insurance Policy Analysis
By Stephen Rosenberg on
I turn today from my recent obsession with ERISA preemption and the Wal-Mart case to other arguably unhealthy obsessions, including insurance coverage decisions, contract interpretation and the fine art of drawing a good judge. On Monday, the Massachusetts Appeals Court issued its opinion in American Commercial Finance Corp. v. Seneca Insurance Co.,in which the…