Recently, the Court of Appeals in King's Cove Marina, LLC v. Lambert Commercial Constr. LLC, 937 N.W.2d 458 (Minn. Ct. App. 2019), review granted (Feb. 26, 2020) held that when an insured and a claimant enter into a Miller-Shugart agreement, the parties must allocate...
Firm News
CHILD ABUSE IN SCHOOL BUS DOES NOT GIVE RISE TO UM CLAIM
Recently the Supreme Court of Virginia in Corriveau v. State Farm Mutual Auto Insurance Co., 836 S.E.2d 694 (Va. 2019) ruled that child abuse inflicted by a bus driver and a bus driver's aide were not covered by the victim's uninsured motorist coverage. The Court...
PROPERTY INSURERS ARE NOT ALLOWED TO DEPRECIATE LABOR COSTS WHEN CALCULATING ACTUAL CASH VALUE IN MISSISSIPPI
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit in Mitchell v. State Farm Fire and Cas. Co., 954 F.3d 700 (5th Cir. 2020), applying Mississippi law, held that State Farm's definition of actual cash value was ambiguous and therefore had to be interpreted in the...
LABOR COSTS NOT PART OF ACTUAL CASH VALUE
Recently the Tennessee Supreme Court held that in calculating actual cash value, depreciation was part of the calculation. Where the policy does not define what depreciation means, the insurance company may depreciate the cost of the materials used in a repair...
IMMUNITY MATTERS
Recently the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals held, predicting the law of Mississippi, that when a driver was immune from suit, UIM coverage was not triggered because the insured would not be "legally entitled" to recover damages from a tortfeasor with no civil...
RHODE ISLAND SUPREME COURT SAYS THAT INSURANCE COMPANIES DO NOT OWE THIRD-PARTY CLAIMANTS ANY DUTY TO ATTEMPT SETTLEMENT
In Summit Insurance Co. v. Stricklett, 199 A.3d 523 (R.I. 2019) the court found that the insurer did not owe a minor child pedestrian who was struck by the insured's vehicle or the child's parents any duty to attempt to settle the child's personal injury claim. The...
PERMISSIVE DRINKING?
The Missouri Supreme Court held in Griffitts v. Old Republic Insurance Co., 2018 WL 3235859 (Mo. 7/3/18) that an intoxicated employee, who had been driving a company vehicle while intoxicated, was a permissive user notwithstanding his violation of company procedure....
ADJUSTER’S FALSE REPRESENTATIONS CONSTITUTE CONSUMER FRAUD ACT VIOLATION IN NEW JERSEY
In Alpizar-Fellas v. Favero, 906 F.3d 910 (3rd Cir. 2018) (interpreting New Jersey law) the Court found that an adjuster's alleged fraudulent representations which induced the insured to sign a release that the insured did not understand gave rise to a private right...
WHEN DOES A STATUTORY BAD FAITH CLAIM ACCRUE UNDER DELAWARE LAW?
Delaware has a three-year statute of limitations period for the filing of a bad faith claim. In Homeland Ins. Co. of New York v. CorVel Corp., 197 A.3d 1042 (Del. 2018) the Court held that the limitations period began to run when the insured could plead a bad faith...
How Many Car Accidents Does It Take To Constitute An Occurrence?
An interesting case from the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals considered the question of how many collisions constitute a single occurrence. In Evanston Ins. Co. v. Mid-Continent Casualty Co., 909 F.3d 143 (5th Cir. 2018) the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals held that a...