More Insurance Coverage
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February 04, 2025
Calif. Insurer Can't Get Tax Refund On In-State Shipments
A California insurance company can't get a refund of sales taxes paid when it placed orders with three vendors located out of state that the vendors fulfilled with shipments from within the state, the California Office of Tax Appeals ruled.
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February 03, 2025
NC Justices Urged To Reject Appeal Over Rate Hike Approvals
North Carolina's insurance commissioner urged the state's highest court to reject a policyholder's appeal challenging a series of insurer rate hike approvals in court, saying an appeals panel correctly found that the policyholder failed to support his claims that intervening in the preceding approval process was impossible.
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February 03, 2025
Ex-Geico Sales Rep. Seeks Class Cert. In Overtime Suit
A former Geico call center worker asked a Georgia federal judge Friday to certify a proposed class of more than 1,000 sales representatives who say the insurance company required them to do unpaid work before and after their shifts, as well as on their lunch breaks.
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February 03, 2025
Stradley Ronon Hires Mintz Insurance Team In DC, NY
A quartet of insurance attorneys who all focus their practices on a range of related coverage, reinsurance and insurance regulatory matters has joined Stradley Ronon Stevens & Young LLP's offices in Washington, D.C., and New York, according to a Monday announcement.
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January 31, 2025
HUD Seeks Pause On Insurers' Appeal Over Fair Housing Rule
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development attorneys asked a D.C. Circuit court Friday to pause consideration of an insurance industry trade group's appeal over a HUD rule addressing discrimination claims under the Fair Housing Act, saying the agency's new leadership may reconsider the rule altogether.
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January 31, 2025
Supreme Court Eyes Its 'Next Frontier' In FCC Delegation Case
A case about broadband subsidies will give the U.S. Supreme Court the chance to revive a long-dormant separation of powers principle that attorneys say could upend regulations in numerous industries and trigger a power shift that would make last term's shake-up of federal agency authority pale in comparison. And a majority of the court already appears to support its resurrection.
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January 31, 2025
Judge Blocks Symetra Life Policyholders' $32.5M Deal
A Washington federal court rejected a $32.5 million settlement bid brought by a proposed class of Symetra life insurance policyholders who accused the life insurer of using undisclosed nonmortality factors to overcharge monthly rates, noting the proposed settlement notice leaves information on the class counsel's cost reimbursement blank.
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January 31, 2025
Chiropractors Can Testify On Injury Cause, Mich. Panel Says
Michigan law does not bar chiropractors from testifying about how injuries could be connected to car crashes if the issues fall within the scope of their expertise, a Michigan appellate panel said in reviving a physical therapy clinic's quest to recover no-fault benefits for treatment provided to a crash victim.
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January 30, 2025
Symetra To Pay $2M To End Structured Settlement Suit
Insurance conglomerate Symetra has agreed to pay more than $2.1 million to settle a proposed class action in Washington federal court accusing two Symetra entities of luring roughly 2,000 recipients of personal injury settlements into selling their future stream of payments for a heavily discounted lump sum.
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January 30, 2025
SEC Eyes Pretrial Win On $57M Fraud After Lindberg Plea Deal
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission asked a North Carolina federal judge to give it a pretrial win on its fraud claims against convicted former insurance mogul Greg Lindberg and his investment adviser firm, arguing multiple convictions in parallel criminal cases against Lindberg and others are a "straightforward" indicator of his liability.
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January 29, 2025
Lab Co-Owner Gets 9 Years For $369M COVID Testing Scheme
The co-owner of a California medical laboratory was sentenced to nine years in prison after being accused of conspiring to defraud Medicare and private insurers out of $369 million by submitting claims for medically unnecessary tests during the COVID-19 pandemic emergency.
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January 29, 2025
Lloyd's Can't Yet Arbitrate $5M Settlement Coverage Dispute
A New Jersey federal court rejected a bid Wednesday from certain Lloyd's of London underwriters to arbitrate a man's demand that they cover a $5 million settlement he won against a police department they insured, though it stopped short of saying whether the parties must actually go to arbitration.
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January 29, 2025
Ex-Allied World Executive Gets Prison, Must Repay $1.2M
A former executive and claims handler at Allied World Insurance Co. will serve 20 months in prison and must repay $1.2 million he admitted to scamming from the company for phony construction work and kickbacks from vendors, federal prosecutors in Connecticut announced Tuesday.
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January 29, 2025
Workers Needed To Initiate Arbitration, Calif. Panel Says
A group of workers needed to initiate arbitration in their proposed class action claiming an insurance company misclassified them as exempt employees after a trial court sent their claims out of court, a California state appellate panel ruled, flipping the lower court's decision reviving the suit.
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January 27, 2025
Anadarko Prevails In La. Kickback Defense Coverage Suit
An environmental remediation company should defend and indemnify聽Anadarko Petroleum Corp.聽in a decade-old Louisiana kickback lawsuit, a Texas federal court judge has ruled.
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January 27, 2025
Allstate Beats Plan Participants' $70M Poor-Performance Suit
An Illinois federal judge handed Allstate a pretrial win Monday over retirement plan participants' claim that the insurer cost them nearly $70 million by holding on to poor-performing funds, saying the plaintiffs' "apples and oranges" comparisons will not sway a jury in their favor.
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January 24, 2025
Wells Fargo Gets Another Win In Lifetrade Investor Suit
A New York federal judge determined that investors of Lifetrade Fund BV cannot prove Wells Fargo aided or abetted an alleged massive fraud orchestrated by Lifetrade's managers, saying the investors presented only contradictory information regarding the value of the Lifetrade portfolio.
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January 24, 2025
Grier Wright Tapped For Insurance Mogul's $2B Liquidation
Bankruptcy attorney Joseph Grier of Grier Wright Martinez PA will serve as special master to identify, receive, track and distribute billions of dollars that will go toward restitution to victims defrauded by convicted insurance mogul Greg Lindberg, a North Carolina federal judge ruled.
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January 21, 2025
4th Circ. Won't Undo Doctor's Conviction For Reusing Devices
A former North Carolina ear, nose and throat doctor staring down 25 years in prison for healthcare fraud lost an appeal Tuesday seeking to overturn her conviction, with the Fourth Circuit finding that the lower court did not commit any reversible error that would favor a shot at redemption.
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January 21, 2025
Lyft Driver Says Carjacking Suit Should've Settled Sooner
A Lyft driver accused his insurer of violating Washington's Insurance Fair Conduct Act over his bid for uninsured motorist benefits following a carjacking, saying the insurer forced him to go to arbitration and win an over $1.1 million award rather than accept his earlier $1 million policy limit demands.
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January 17, 2025
Insurers Needn't Cover Plastic-Maker For Worker Death Suit
Travelers and Zurich insurers don't owe indemnification to Ohio-based manufacturer Encore Plastics for a suit over a worker's death, a federal court ruled Friday, saying a "direct intent" exclusion applies to the underlying claims arising under an Ohio statute that authorizes employer liability for intentional torts.
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January 15, 2025
Crash Claimant Can't Appeal After Payout, NJ Justices Say
A plaintiff in an automobile personal injury case who accepts full payment of a final judgment and executes a warrant to satisfy it may not appeal a ruling barring evidence of future medical expenses unless they state their intent to appeal before accepting the payment, the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled Wednesday.
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January 15, 2025
Symetra Life Policyholders Seek $32.5M Settlement Approval
A proposed class of Symetra policyholders asked a Washington federal court to preliminarily approve a $32.5 million deal to resolve a suit alleging that the insurer overcharged them for life insurance, saying the 11-state settlement would cover the owners of 43,000 policies.
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January 15, 2025
Chubb Unit Seeks Exit From Bar's $105M Drunken Driving Suit
A Chubb unit said it no longer owes coverage to a bar appealing a $105 million judgment related to a drunken patron's car crash, telling a Texas federal court the bar violated the terms of the policy by refusing to cooperate with the insurer's defense.
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January 13, 2025
Blue Cross Can't Skirt NC Hospital's Defamation Claims
A local hospital can pursue some of its defamation claims against Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina in a suit alleging the health insurer wrongly denied millions of dollars in reimbursements and falsely accused the facility of fraud, a federal judge ruled Monday.
Expert Analysis
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Rethinking 'No Comment' For Clients Facing Public Crises
鈥淣o comment鈥 is no longer a cost-free or even a viable public communications strategy for companies in crisis, and counsel must tailor their guidance based on a variety of competing factors to help clients emerge successfully, says Robert Bowers at Moore & Van Allen.
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How Design Thinking Can Help Lawyers Find Purpose In Work
Lawyers everywhere are feeling overwhelmed amid mass government layoffs, increasing political instability and a justice system stretched to its limits 鈥 but a design-thinking framework can help attorneys navigate this uncertainty and find meaning in their work, say law professors at the University of Michigan.
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Inconsistent Injury-In-Fact Rules Hinder Federal Practice
A recent Third Circuit decision, contradicting a previous ruling about whether consumers of contaminated products have suffered an injury in fact, illustrates the deep confusion this U.S. Supreme Court standard creates among federal judges and practitioners, who deserve a simpler method of determining which cases have federal standing, says Eric Dwoskin at Dwoskin Wasdin.
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In-House Counsel Pointers For Preserving Atty-Client Privilege
Several recent rulings illustrate the challenges in-house counsel can face when attempting to preserve attorney-client privilege, but a few best practices can help safeguard communications and effectively assert the privilege in an increasingly scrutinized corporate environment, says Daniel Garrie at Law & Forensics.
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5 Argument Techniques For Policyholder Advocates
Winning insurance coverage disputes often comes down to who has articulated the more compelling interpretation of the relevant policy language, which is why the best policyholder advocates come back to certain tried and true argument approaches, says Greg Van Houten at Haynes Boone.
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Disability Ruling Guides On Cases With Uncertain Causation
In Dime v. MetLife, a Washington federal court鈥檚 recent ruling in favor of a disability claimant instructs both claimants and insurers on the appropriate standard for establishing and making a disability determination when there is limited medical evidence explaining the disability鈥檚 cause, says Mark DeBofsky at DeBofsky Law.
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Judge Should Not Have Been Reprimanded For Alito Essay
Senior U.S. District Judge Michael Ponsor's New York Times essay critiquing Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito for potential ethical violations absolutely cannot be construed as conduct prejudicial to the administration of the business of the courts, says Ashley London at the Thomas R. Kline School of Law of Duquesne University.
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Lights, Camera, Ethics? TV Lawyers Tend To Set Bad Example
Though fictional movies and television shows portraying lawyers are fun to watch, Hollywood鈥檚 inaccurate depictions of legal ethics can desensitize attorneys to ethics violations and lead real-life clients to believe that good lawyers take a scorched-earth approach, says Nancy Rapoport at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
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Accountant-Owned Law Firms Could Blur Ethical Lines
KPMG鈥檚 recent application to open a legal practice in Arizona represents the first overture by an accounting firm to take advantage of the state鈥檚 relaxed law firm ownership rules, but enforcing and supervising the practice of law by nonattorneys could prove particularly challenging, says Seth Laver at Goldberg Segalla.
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AI Will Soon Transform The E-Discovery Industrial Complex
Todd Itami at Covington discusses how generative artificial intelligence will reshape the current e-discovery paradigm, replacing the blunt instrument of data handling with a laser scalpel of fully integrated enterprise solutions 鈥 after first making e-discovery processes technically and legally harder.
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When Innovation Overwhelms The Rule Of Law
In an era where technology is rapidly evolving and artificial intelligence is seemingly everywhere, it鈥檚 worth asking if the law 鈥 both substantive precedent and procedural rules 鈥 can keep up with the light speed of innovation, says Reuben Guttman at Guttman Buschner.
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Imagine The Possibilities Of Openly Autistic Lawyering
Andi Mazingo at Lumen Law, who was diagnosed with autism about midway through her career, discusses how the legal profession can create inclusive workplaces that empower openly autistic lawyers and enhance innovation, and how neurodivergent attorneys can navigate the challenges and opportunities that come with disclosing one鈥檚 diagnosis.
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Litigation Funding Disclosure Debate: Strategy Considerations
In the ongoing debate over whether courts should require disclosure of litigation funding, funders and plaintiffs tend to argue against such mandates, but voluntarily disclosing limited details about a funding arrangement can actually confer certain benefits to plaintiffs in some scenarios, say Andrew Stulce and Marc Cavan at Longford Capital.