Imagine that your company has finally released its new flagship product, which is slated to be the new lifeblood of the company. You’re elated when early sales far exceed expectations. But soon you are hit with a demand letter from a competitor alleging that the product infringes its patents, and…
Claim analysis and pre-trial preparation can sometimes become so focused on determining what the law is that lawyers lose sight of our ability to change that law. In some cases, that means discovering and arguing new legal issues. In others, it means persuading the courts to take your side of…
A federal court in Michigan just breathed new life into a long-running legal saga—while at the same time issuing a warning shot across the bows of insurers—by declining to dismiss an insured’s bad faith cause of action alleging its insurer wrongly decided to pay one claim before another, to the…
As the old adage goes, “the devil is in the details.” Insurance policy terms do not always apply in ways that policyholders expect. For this reason, it is imperative to understand how coverages, definitions and exclusions work together to avoid surprise gaps in coverage. The Fifth Circuit found a coverage…
As the adage goes, don’t make a promise you cannot keep. An insurance policy, like any other contract, involves a commitment from both sides. For third-party liability policies, an insurer typically commits to a broad duty to defend the policyholder against any suits alleging claims that have a potential for…
America is facing a reckoning. Many brave individuals have stepped forward over the last several months to speak truth about sexual harassment and assault in workplaces, in entire industries, and even in Congress. For a very long time, companies dealt with sexual assault and harassment allegations quietly and in backrooms,…
In two posts earlier this year—South Carolina May No Longer Hold Insurers’ Reservations and The Insurer’s Mixed-Coverage Burden—we told you about an important decision issued by the South Carolina Supreme Court in Harleysville Group Insurance v. Heritage Communities, Inc. Those posts were written shortly after the court issued its original…
As the cliché saying goes: “When it comes to love, never settle for less than you deserve.” But when it comes to insurance coverage, sometimes settling for less than the full limits of a policy is an effective compromise that saves time and avoids costly litigation. However, if losses may…
Cyber insurance continues to be one of the hottest topics in the insurance industry. In the last several years it has evolved from a little-known specialty product to a standard purchase for some corporate risk departments. By now, most companies generally are aware that cyber attacks present substantial risks. Many…
Fashion is sexy; insurance is not. So it’s easy to think of the two separately. But there are many points of intersection. Some of those intersections are not industry-specific: like other industries, fashion—design houses, retailers, textile manufacturers, modeling agencies—carries property, D&O, cyber, and many other lines of insurance. But unique…