Hinshaw Releases Second Edition of Duty to Defend: A Fifty-State Survey
Loading and Unloading Under GL and Auto Policies: 2022
Prior & Pending Litigation
What is a Damron Agreement?
On July 9, 2025, in Hammond Power Solutions Inc. v. National Union Fire Insurance Co., the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the district court’s decision granting summary judgment to the insurer and finding, under...more
A worker was injured when he fell from a ladder while working for a subcontractor at a construction project. The injured worker sued the owner of the project, seeking damages for his injuries. The owner was defended by its...more
The Court of Appeals’ opinion in N.C. Farm Bureau Mut. Ins. Co. v. Young, (No. COA24-594) addresses how a court is likely to assess the duty to defend and the duty to indemnify under an insurance contract, and the interplay...more
The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, applying California law, has affirmed a district court’s determination that California Insurance Code § 533 barred indemnity and defense costs coverage for a lawsuit...more
Key Points: A workers’ compensation insurance carrier normally does not have a duty to pay benefits for an intentional injury claim....more
Plaintiff’s counsel often employ a range of strategic tactics to defeat diversity jurisdiction because they view federal court as an unfavorable forum. One such tactic is to challenge the amount in controversy—a key...more
This insurance-coverage dispute involved alleged asbestos exposure from asbestos-containing vermiculite mined from Vermiculite Mountain outside of Libby, Mont. The court acknowledged that vermiculite ore may contain toxic...more
Fernandez v. Old Republic Nat’l Title Ins. Co., Fla. 3d DCA, No. 3D23-1088, December 4, 2024 - The Third District Court of Appeals reversed a trial court’s ruling and ordered the insurance carrier, Old Republic National Title...more
In Loblaw Companies Limited v. Royal & Sun Alliance Insurance Company of Canada, 2024 ONCA 145, the Ontario Court of Appeal, among other things, overturned the lower court’s finding that insureds were entitled to seek 100% of...more
In Nationwide Mutual Fire Insurance Co. v. Carmichael, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama, applying Alabama law, entered summary judgment ruling that Nationwide Fire Insurance Co. had no duty to...more
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
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit recently applied the newly adopted Texas Supreme Court decision outlining those circumstances in which extrinsic evidence may be used to determine an insurer's duty to defend...more
Welcome to CICR’s annual recap of insurance cases you should know about — and others in the pipeline to watch. You can read about our selections for “Cases to Know” and “Cases to Watch” below. In the last year, we saw...more
Using general contract interpretation principles, the Fifth Circuit reversed summary judgment in favor of an insurer and found a duty to defend Landry’s in a data breach lawsuit. Landry’s Inc. v. The Insurance Company of the...more
Under established Illinois law, an insurer must defend a legal action filed against its insured unless it is clear from the face of the underlying complaint that the allegations fail to state facts which bring the case...more
An insurer of a suspended corporation has an incentive to defend the corporation because it may be liable to a judgment creditor that obtains a default judgment against the insured suspended corporate. See Cal. Ins. Code §...more
First and foremost, we hope everyone is staying safe and healthy. As you probably have noticed, Rivkin Radler has issued a series of bulletins over the past several days to help our clients navigate through this difficult...more
In a sweeping decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit extended the absolute pollution exclusion to the unplanned discharge of “rock fines,” pellets produced during quarry operations, and denied coverage for...more
On December 31, 2019, the First District Illinois Appellate Court issued its decision in Owners Insurance Company v. Precision Painting & Decorating Corporation, clarifying what does and does not constitute “property damage”...more
McMillin Homes Constr., Inc. v. National Fire & Marine Ins. Co., 35 Cal.App.5th 1042 (2019); Fourth Appellate District Court of Appeal, Division One, Case No. D074219 (June 5, 2019). McMillin Homes Construction, Inc....more
In Direct Auto Insurance Company v. Bahena, et al., 2019 IL App (1st) 172918, the Illinois Appellate Court sifted through a procedural nightmare in order to get to the very sensical conclusion that “It cannot be the case that...more
It’s a familiar story to anyone involved in insurance claims. A policyholder is sued and tenders the claim to its insurer. The insurer agrees to defend subject to a reservation of rights, but it also asserts that policy...more
In an unpublished decision, the Ninth Circuit affirmed the Central District of California’s interpretation of the related acts provision in a professional liability policy, holding that related acts reported in a prior policy...more
A feature of 28 U.S.C. § 1332, the diversity-jurisdiction statute, may make you scratch your head and wonder why it’s there. In the Seventh Circuit’s March 15, 2018 decision in Hyland v. Liberty Mutual Fire Ins. Co., No....more
Addison Ins. Co. v. 4000 Island Blvd. Condo. Ass’n, 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 26870 (11th Cir. Dec. 28, 2017) - The owner of a high-rise condominium building in Florida hired a contractor to replace the building’s concrete...more