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Contract Interpretation Insurance Litigation

Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP

Maryland High Court Ruling Clarifies Claim Assignment

A policyholder's ability to assign its rights to insurance proceeds can be an effective tool of risk mitigation. However, insurance policies often incorporate assignment clauses, which require policyholders to obtain their...more

Wiley Rein LLP

Court Finds Class Action Lawsuits Regarding Rental Management Programs to Constitute “Related Claims”

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The United States District Court for the District of Montana, applying Montana law, has held that two class-action lawsuits regarding rental management agreements filed during different policy periods were “Related Claims”...more

Carlton Fields

Insurer Stripped of Coverage Defenses for Models’ Suit Against Insured Club

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Declining to find any of the insurer’s proffered exclusions applicable, a federal district court in Minnesota sided with the insured — a strip club that was sued for using models’ images without permission in its online...more

Kennedys

Delaware Supreme Court delivers split decision to insurers in 3M coverage row

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The Delaware Supreme Court’s 3-2 Aearo Technologies LLC Insurance Appeals decision on August 12, 2025 affirmed a lower court ruling that payment of defense costs by a non-insured did not count toward the insured’s...more

ArentFox Schiff

Federal Court Finds Provider/Payer Medicare Advantage Agreements Do Not Implicate Federal Question Jurisdiction

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A North Carolina federal court’s recent order granting remand in the case Nash Hospitals, Inc. v. UnitedHealthcare of North Carolina, Inc., et al., No. 5:25-CV-28-FL underscores the limits of federal question jurisdiction in...more

Cozen O'Connor

Court Interprets “Completion” of a Project Under Builder’s Risk Insurance

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In Luke, Inc. v. Berkley National Insurance Company, 2025 WL 2210783 (W.D. Tenn. 2025), the United States District Court for the Western District of Tennessee determined that the “completion” of a construction project for...more

Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP

Maryland’s Highest Court Corrects Insurer’s Overreach on Insurance Policy’s Assignment Clause

Insurance policies often incorporate assignment clauses, which require policyholders to obtain their insurers’ written consent before assigning their insurance policies to others. For example, the ISO Common Policy Conditions...more

Phelps Dunbar

Who, Me?

Phelps Dunbar on

A surety asserting an indemnity claim in federal court in Georgia sought recovery against indemnitors involved with a joint venture put together to bid on construction projects requiring surety bonds....more

Wiley Rein LLP

Louisiana Appellate Court Enforces Bodily Injury Exclusion in an Errors and Omissions Policy

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The Court of Appeal of Louisiana, Third Circuit, has held that a bodily injury exclusion in a carrier’s errors and omissions policies barred coverage for a third-party claim by another carrier and a third-party demand by an...more

Mayer Brown

Service Charge Obligations Do Not Include a Duty to Pay Inflated Insurance Commissions (Updated)

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This reverberations from London Trocadero (2015) LLP v Picturehouse Cinemas Limited  [2025] EWHC 1247 (Ch) will be felt throughout the commercial property industry, and we predict it will contribute to a much needed...more

Mayer Brown

Service Charge Obligations Do Not Include a Duty to Pay Inflated Insurance Commissions

Mayer Brown on

The reverberations from London Trocadero (2015) LLP v Picturehouse Cinemas Limited  [2025] EWHC 1247 (Ch) will be felt throughout the commercial property industry, and we predict it will contribute to a much needed...more

Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP

Beware Misuse of Related-Claims Deemer Clauses in Claims-Made Policies

The hallmark of a claims-made liability policy is coverage exclusively for claims “first made” during the policy period, thus limiting the insurer’s risk to new claims asserted against the policyholder during a finite time...more

Zelle  LLP

Massachusetts Collapse Decision Highlights Importance of Careful Underwriting

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During the underwriting process, carriers should review affirmative coverages not only to ensure consistency with applicable exclusions but also to make sure that the coverages themselves are internally consistent. Failure to...more

Goldberg Segalla

Plaintiffs Win Appeal Regarding Ambiguous Language In Insurance Policy On Bodily Injury

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Jurisdiction: Court of Appeal of Louisiana, Fourth Circuit - Mr. May died from Mesothelioma and the plaintiffs filed a wrongful death and survival action alleging the decedent was exposed to asbestos while working as a...more

Carlton Fields

Connecticut Federal Court Construes Ambiguous Policy Exclusion in Favor of Coverage, but Rejects Bad Faith Claim

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In A Priori Family Office LLC v. Valley Forge Insurance Co., the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut found the undefined term “surface water” in an all-risk insurance policy’s water exclusion ambiguous, so...more

Bennett Jones LLP

What Class Action Settlement Costs Will A Defendant’s Insurer Cover? The Ontario Superior Court of Justice Provides Some Answers

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In Tokio Marine & Nichido Fire Insurance v Honda Canada, 2025 ONSC 2856, the Ontario Superior Court upheld an arbitral panel's conclusion that an umbrella insurance policy covered settled class counsel fees, but not...more

Zelle  LLP

Any is Not All and The Future is Not Now: The Contours of the Cosmetic Damage Exclusion Taking Shape

Zelle LLP on

In Iyengar v. Liberty Insurance Corporation, No. SA-21-CV-1091-FB, 2024 WL 5505300 (W.D. Tex. Dec. 13, 2024), District Judge Biery denied Plaintiffs’ Motion for Clarification regarding Magistrate Judge Bemporad’s...more

Rivkin Radler LLP

COVID Biz Interruption Coverage Denied by NY Court of Appeals

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On February 15, 2024, the New York Court of Appeals unanimously upheld the Appellate Division, First Department decision affirming dismissal of restaurant operator Consolidated Restaurant Operations, Inc.’s (CRO) complaint...more

White and Williams LLP

Ohio Court Refuses to Annualize Multi-Year Policies’ Per Occurrence Limits

White and Williams recently obtained summary judgment against an insured on behalf of an insurer and a guarantor, establishing that two multi-year insurance policies provide per occurrence limits on a per policy rather than a...more

Butler Weihmuller Katz Craig LLP

Confined to the Four Corners by the Rules of Contract Interpretation

A Review of Shiloh Christian Center v. Aspen Specialty Insurance Company - The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals recently held that the plain text of an insurance policy trumps the parties’ subjective intent and...more

Pillsbury - Policyholder Pulse blog

A Missing Issue in “Blank Space” Insurance Ruling

Insurance coverage disputes often turn on the meaning of the specific words used in a policy. Norwegian Hull Club v. North Star Fishing Co., currently pending in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida,...more

Jenner & Block

Client Alert: First Circuit Parses Underlying Complaint to Find Duty to Defend and to Defeat Exclusions

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The duty of a liability insurer to defend a policyholder from litigation is typically described as broad and expansive, extending beyond the insurer’s duty to indemnify. The duty to defend generally obliges an insurer to...more

Carlton Fields

Fifth Circuit Leans on Well-Established Contractual Interpretation Doctrine to Preclude Coverage Under General Liability Policy

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To paraphrase Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., a case “which appeals to the feelings and distorts the judgment” makes bad law. In the face of exceptionally tragic circumstances, however, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals...more

Carlton Fields

New York Federal Court Denies Reinsurer’s Motions for New Trial and Judgment as a Matter of Law, Modifies Accrual Date for...

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In a matter previously covered in this blog, the Northern District of New York was asked to determine whether Clearwater Insurance Co. (the reinsurer) was entitled to a new trial, a judgment as a matter of law, or an...more

Farella Braun + Martel LLP

The War Exclusion in a Time of War

The “war” exclusion has gotten more attention over the past couple of weeks in light of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. For good reason. This exclusion, common in property and liability policies alike, typically eliminates...more

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