Please join me for another CLE program I am presenting for Strafford Publications on Wednesday, April 16, 2014, from 1pm to 2:30pm EST. The topic of this week’s program is CGL Exclusions: Navigating Contractual Liability, Business Risk, Third-Party Over, and Data Breach Exclusions. I will present the issues from the policyholder perspective and Bob Marshall from Nicolaides Fink …
I previously discussed the American Building Materials coverage cases here. ABM II was decided against the policyholder under Massachusetts law. Judge Bucklew of the Middle District of Florida entered summary judgment in the insurer’s favor after finding that Granite State’s Total Pollution Exclusion unambiguously excluded coverage for the Chinese drywall claims. Yesterday, the Eleventh Circuit affirmed …
In most jurisdictions, an insurer’s duty to defend is determined based on what is commonly referred to as the “eight corners rule”. Under the eight corners rule, the only relevant pieces of information when determining the duty to defend are the coverage promises contained within the four corners of the insurance policy and the allegations …
The Florida Supreme Court’s decision in Deni Associates of Florida, Inc. v. State Farm Fire & Casualty Insurance Co., 711 So.2d 1135 (Fla. 1998) continues to haunt Florida policyholders with Total Pollution Exclusions in their general liability policies. This time it was Southern District of Florida Judge Robert Scola’s July 16, 2012 decision in First …
This April 9, 2012 decision (Great American Fidelity Insurance Co. and Great American E&S Insurance Co. v. JWR Construction Services Inc. and Gulf Reflections Condominium Association, No. 10-61423 (S.D. Fla. April 9, 2012)) by Judge Huck of the Southern District of Florida (Fort Lauderdale) is interesting for several reasons. The declaratory judgment action was filed …
On March 2, Auto-Owners Insurance Company dropped its Eleventh Circuit appeal of a Middle District of Florida decision granting summary judgment to its policyholder on defense and indemnity coverage for Chinese drywall liabilities. The district court’s opinion, authored by Judge Susan Bucklew in Tampa, denied Auto-Owners’ summary judgment motion seeking to avoid coverage obligations based on the pollution …
Let’s take a short break from the top 10 insurance myths series to discuss a recent Eleventh Circuit decision that might seem a bit puzzling at first. (Hat tip to my friend Dan Thomas, construction lawyer extraordinaire at Leopold Law, for sending me a copy of the opinion.) In Ruderman v. Washington National Insurance Corp., …