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Summary Judgment Commercial Insurance Policies

Pillsbury - Policyholder Pulse blog

Paloma Resources v. Axis Insurance Shows How “The” Can Be the Genuine Article in a Policyholder Defense

It’s said that an ant can carry fifty times its own weight. That’s nothing. A recent decision out of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit provides a compelling reminder to policyholders and their counsel: Even the...more

Wiley Rein LLP

Lawsuits Alleging Misconduct Based on Flawed Testing Procedures Deemed Not “Related Claims”

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The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, applying Virginia law, has held that two lawsuits alleging misconduct based on flawed drug testing procedures performed by the insured do not constitute...more

Marshall Dennehey

Pennsylvania Superior Court Finds Appellants’ Position Unreasonable

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In Hespen v. Erie Insurance Company, Levy Insurance Company, LLC and Thomas Levy, 332 A.3d 1229 (Pa. Super. 2024), the Pennsylvania Superior Court rejected the appellants’ assertion of the applicability of the doctrine of...more

Conn Kavanaugh

Update Your Construction Contract! Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Holds that Breach of Contractual Indemnity Provision is...

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Under the Massachusetts statute of repose, tort claims involving improvements to real estate generally must be initiated within six years of the improvement’s opening to use. So, for example, if a worker suffers a jobsite...more

Maynard Nexsen

Decisions Expand Scope of Business Owners’ Policy Exclusion

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In the age where cling wrap doesn’t cling and “shrinkflation” is a necessary portmanteau, it’s rare to get more. This is especially true for insurers, whose policies are construed against them when ambiguous, and...more

Carlton Fields

New York Federal Court Enforces Exclusion Barring Coverage for Claims Based on Any Misrepresentation, Regardless of Perceived...

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When state law provides that an insurance contract can be rescinded for misrepresentations only if they are “material,” can an insurer contract around that rule by adding an exclusion for all claims based on any...more

Rivkin Radler LLP

March 2025 New York Insurance Coverage Law Update

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The owners of a warehouse leased it to a commercial tenant to operate a photography studio. The lease required the tenant to procure insurance for the owners and to indemnify them for the negligent acts of the tenant’s...more

Stoel Rives LLP

The Evolving Landscape of Bad-Faith Law in Oregon: A Year After Moody v. Oregon Community Credit Union

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In a landmark decision in 2023, the Oregon Supreme Court in Moody v. Oregon Community Credit Union, 371 Or. 772, 542 P.3d 24 (2023), reshaped the contours of bad-faith insurance litigation in Oregon. This ruling has since...more

Rivkin Radler LLP

October 2024 New York Insurance Coverage Law Update

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The insured admittedly punched and threw the claimant to the ground, but the insured maintained during her plea for reckless assault in criminal court that the claimant was the aggressor, she acted in self-defense, and that...more

Cozen O'Connor

The Importance of Experts J&S Welding, Inc. v. Liberty Mutual Insurance Company

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In J&S Welding, Inc. v. Liberty Mutual Insurance Company, the U.S. Court of Appeals reviewed a summary judgment ruling in favor of co-defendant West American Insurance Company (“West American”), issued by the U.S. District...more

Adams & Reese

Coverage Stripped Bare: The Fifth Circuit Holds True to the Eight Corners Rule

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In a recent ruling, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit determined that an insurer owed no defense and indemnity to three strip clubs that had previously been sued for misappropriating the images of...more

White and Williams LLP

Top Developments October 2023

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DEFENSE COST REIMBURSEMENT - Cont’l Cas. Co. v. Winder Labs., LLC, 73 F.4th 934 (11th Cir. 2023) Eleventh Circuit predicts that, under Georgia law, insurers found to have no duty to defend underlying suits could not...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

Rivkin Radler LLP

New York Insurance Coverage Law Update- February 2021

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A Manhattan law firm sued Midvale Indemnity Company seeking coverage under the firm’s commercial property insurance policy for losses caused by stay-at-home and social distancing directives issued by New York State in...more

Steptoe & Johnson PLLC

Disagreement Does Not Mean Ambiguity

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West Virginia Supreme Court Upholds Water Backup Exclusion - The Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia recently found an exclusion for loss or damage caused by “water that backs up or overflows from a sewer, drain, or...more

Rivkin Radler LLP

Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation Centralizes Some COVID-19 Related Insurance Cases

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Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation Centralizes Some COVID‐19 Related Insurance Cases As reported in our September update, the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation at its July 2020 hearing session requested...more

Carlton Fields

Fifth Circuit Holds That Ensuing Loss Provision of Builders’ Risk Policy Requires Two Separate Events to Qualify for the...

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In Balfour Beatty Construction, LLC v. Liberty Mutual Fire Insurance Company, No. 19-20216 (August 3, 2020), the Fifth Circuit determined that Liberty Mutual’s policy does not cover a construction company’s claim for window...more

Carlton Fields

Ransomware Attack Replacement Costs Are Covered “Direct Physical Loss or Damage” Under Standard Business Owner’s Policy, According...

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A Maryland federal court recently weighed in on the still-murky world of insurance coverage for cybersecurity losses, finding replacement costs necessitated by a ransomware attack were “direct physical loss or damage” to a...more

Patton Sullivan Brodehl LLP

Loss of Use can be “Property Damage” under Insurance Policies

General liability insurance policies normally cover “property damage.” Physical injury to, or outright destruction of, property almost always fits within policy coverage. But what about situations when the property is not...more

Jaburg Wilk

Arizona Court of Appeals Holds Anti-Stacking Provision Inapplicable in Policies Issued by "Affiliated Insurers"

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The Holding - In Hanfelder v. Geico Indem. Co., WL 2018 WL 2315949 (May 22, 2018), the Arizona Court of Appeals reversed summary judgment granted to an Insurer because the Policy’s “imprecise” anti-stacking language did...more

Cozen O'Connor

Flood Exclusion Unambiguously Excludes Coverage For $49.5M In Hurricane Sandy Losses Caused By Storm Surge

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Cozen O’Connor attorneys Thomas McKay III, Richard Mackowsky, Charles Jesuit, and Melissa Brill recently secured summary judgment from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York in favor of Great...more

Cozen O'Connor

Insurer’s Denial of Mitigation Claim for Extra Costs to Prevent Cancellation of Contract Upheld

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Many property insurance policies that provide coverage for business interruption losses also include “extra expense” coverage for reasonable and necessary extra costs to temporarily continue as nearly as possible normal...more

Fenwick & West LLP

Litigation Alert: The Fifth Circuit Limits Coverage under the Computer Fraud Provision of Insurance Policies

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Last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit narrowed the conduct covered under an insurance policy’s computer fraud provision by vacating the judgment in favor of the insured, Apache Corp., and rendering...more

Cozen O'Connor

“Context Matters” – Tenth Circuit Holds Mudslide Not an Explosion Under Property Policy

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On August 29, 2016, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit affirmed a Colorado district court ruling that the sudden obliteration of a building in a 2013 mudslide did not constitute an “explosion” under a commercial...more

Cozen O'Connor

Do Fidelity Policies Issued to Individual Partners Provide Coverage for Theft of Partnership Earnings?

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The Eighth Circuit is set to decide this question in 3M Company, et al. v. National Union Fire Insurance Company of Pittsburgh, Pa., et al., Appeal No. 15-3495. The answer will likely determine whether a blanket crime policy...more

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