Emerging Trends

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Back in the halcyon days of insurance coverage litigation (before many defense-oriented judges began to view themselves as Guardians at the Gate of the Insurance Industry), New Jersey courts would occasionally hand down landmark decisions to protect the policy-buying public from sharp practices by carriers. One of those decisions was Griggs v. Bertram, 88…

Labor Day has just passed as I write this, and this summer (that went by too quickly) was a busy one for the New Jersey appellate courts, insurance-wise.  The New Jersey Supremes, for example,  dealt with a question often posed by our clients in construction defect cases: Namely, can a claimant proceed directly against a…

Back in the days of the environmental insurance coverage wars, we on the policyholder side argued (eventually successfully in New Jersey) that the word “sudden”, as used in the 1973 version of the pollution exclusion, meant “unexpected” and did not have a temporal connotation. My friends in the defense bar often criticized us for trying…

The ongoing battles over construction defect coverage remind me of the good old days in the ‘80’s and ‘90s when we used to fight over asbestos and environmental coverage claims (we still have some of those claims, but to a much lesser extent). Construction defects even involve battles over the appropriate trigger of coverage!  Ah…

We in business are all overwhelmed with reading material, but I try to make sure that I read at least some legal and business publications every day to keep up with developing trends.  And, it seems that every day I see another article about a new hacking incident, or another dire warning about cyber-risk.  (The…

The great CLE instructor Jim McElhaney, a Professor Emeritus at Case Western, used to tell the story of a “professional expert” testifying at trial on cross-examination.  The guy was apparently a kindly old gentleman with an Irish brogue, and also an engineer, and indeed made most of his money in the litigation game.

“You’re a…

On May 20, 2014, I’ll be speaking at Perrin’s Emerging Insurance Coverage & Allocation Issues Conference at The Rittenhouse Hotel in Philadelphia, PA. My panel (shared with the inimitable Gary Kull of Carroll, McNulty & Kull, representing the insurance industry view of things), will focus on “Best Practices for Additional Insureds.” If you can …

If you’re a Rolling Stones fan, you may remember the (underrated) 1974 song, “Fingerprint File.”  (You can hear it by clicking here…“Listenin’ to me/On your satellite.”)  Who knew that, four decades ago, Mick and Keith could be so prescient about cybersnooping and leaks of sensitive data?  Edward Snowden, Bradley Manning, NSA, Nigerian scammers…even British …