Justia Insurance Law Opinion Summaries

Beth Rylee’s husband, Richard Rylee, was injured in a motorcycle accident. After the Rylees received the full "each person" policy limit for damages resulting from Richard’s bodily injury, the Rylees sued their two insurers. They claimed Beth was entitled to her own each-person policy limit for her "separate and distinct" loss-of-consortium claim. But both the language of the relevant policies and the Mississippi Supreme Court’s precedent were clear: if there was only one person who suffered bodily injury in an accident, then all claims based on that person’s bodily injury are included in the each-person policy limit. Only Richard was injured in the accident, so Beth's loss-of-consortium claim fell under the each-person policy limit for damages arising from Richard’s bodily injury, which the two defendant insurance companies already satisfied. The Supreme Court therefore affirmed the circuit court’s grant of summary judgment to the two insurers. View "Rylee v. Progressive Gulf Insurance Co." on Justia Law

Berry worked for Telamon from 2005-2011, under Consulting Agreements between Telamon and Berry’s one-woman company. Berry’s responsibilities expanded beyond those described in the Agreements. She became Telamon’s senior regional manager. She oversaw Telamon’s AT&T Asset Recovery Program, to remove old telecommunications equipment from AT&T sites and sell it to salvagers. Berry removed the equipment and sold it, but kept the profits. The company discovered the scheme in 2011; it had suffered $5.2 million in losses. Berry was convicted of wire fraud and tax evasion; she was sentenced to 60 months’ imprisonment and ordered to pay $3,440,885 in restitution. Telamon sought compensation under its Travelers crime insurance policy and its Charter Oak general commercial insurance policy. Travelers denied coverage because Berry was not, legally, an employee; Charter denied coverage because she was, functionally, an employee. Telamon sued, alleging bad faith, then unsuccessfully sought permission to add claims based on older policies. The request came a year after the deadline for amending pleadings. Telamon filed suit in state court, raising essentially the same claims. The insurers again removed; the district court dismissed the suit as an impermissible attempt to split claims. The Seventh Circuit affirmed both decisions, noting that none of the four ways of establishing bad faith under Indiana law exist in this case. View "Telamon Corporation v. Charter Oak Fire Insurance Co" on Justia Law

After acquiring a parcel of oceanfront property, Osprey Landing, LLC purchased a title insurance policy from First American Title Insurance Company. In connection with litigation with neighboring landowners, the subject property’s previous owner executed affidavits and a deposition that Osprey claimed created the risk of a future public prescriptive easement claim adverse to Osprey’s title. Osprey sent a request to First American invoking title insurance coverage asking First American to take some action to either perfect osprey’s title or compensate Osprey for this perceived title defect. First American declined, and Osprey filed suit to enforce First American’s purported duty to defend and indemnify Osprey. The superior court granted First American’s motion for summary judgment. The Supreme Judicial Court affirmed, holding that Miller’s statements did not create a “triggering event” requiring First American to take any action, and no obligation was imposed on First American under these circumstances to preemptively indemnify Osprey. View "Osprey Landing, LLC v. First American Title Insurance Co." on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, Charles Faber and Karen Faber, filed suit against insurance agencies and related individuals, claiming insurance malpractice. Defendants moved for summary judgment on the basis that Plaintiffs’ claims were barred by the statute of limitations. Plaintiffs responded that the limitation period was tolled because Charles could not reasonably have discovered the alleged insurance malpractice until a date within the limitations period because a reasonable person does not read his or her insurance policies. Summary judgment was entered for Defendants on grounds that Plaintiffs’ claims were time-barred under the three-year limitation period for insurance malpractice claims. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that Plaintiffs’ claims against Defendants were untimely. View "Faber v. McVay" on Justia Law

A subcontractor, CSC, installed the windows defectively at Metro's Chicago condominium. The building sustained significant water damage following a 2006 storm. The unit owners incurred personal-property damage. In 2009 Metro sued the developer, which was insolvent; in 2013 it added a claim against CSC for breach of the implied warranty of habitability. Metro and CSC reached a settlement. Metro dismissed its state court lawsuit; CSC assigned to Metro CSC’s rights to up to $700,000 of insurance coverage from Allied, arising out of the claims asserted against CSC in the lawsuit. The only pending claim against CSC in that lawsuit was for breach of the implied warranty of habitability. The settlement specified that it was not intended to compensate for the cost of repairing or replacing CSC’s defectively installed windows, but rather for the resultant damage to the remaining parts of the condominium and to the unit owners’ personal property. Allied obtained a declaratory judgment that it was not liable under CSC’s standard commercial general liability policy. The Seventh Circuit affirmed. The measure of damages for a breach of the implied warranty of habitability is the cost of repairing the “defective conditions,” here the defectively installed windows. Illinois courts have concluded that CGL policies like Allied’s do not cover the cost of repairing the insured’s defectively completed work; the Allied policy specifically excludes the cost of repairing CSC’s defective work. View "Allied Property & Casualty Insurance Co. v. Metro North Condominium Association" on Justia Law

The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals certified a question of Georgia law to the Georgia Supreme Court stemming from an appeal in a personal injury case arising from an automobile accident. The Eleventh Circuit asked for the proper interpretation of OCGA 9-11-67.1, which governed the formation of settlement agreements pursuant to a pre-suit “offer to settle a tort claim for personal injury, bodily injury, or death arising from the use of a motor vehicle and prepared by or with the assistance of an attorney on behalf of a claimant or claimants” (a “Pre-Suit Offer”). The Supreme Court responded that OCGA 9-11-67.1 did not prohibit a claimant from conditioning acceptance of a Pre-Suit Offer upon the performance of some act, including a timely payment. The Court left it to the Eleventh Circuit to apply this principle to the facts of this case. View "Grange Mutual Casualty Co. v. Woodard" on Justia Law

In this insurance coverage dispute, Liberty Mutual, OES's insurer, denied OES's claim for reimbursement of funds OES spent defending against, and ultimately settling, the underlying tort suit. On appeal, Liberty Mutual claimed that the district court erred by permitting OES and Anadarko to equitably reform their master services contract (MSC), and that the district court interpreted the OES-Liberty Mutual policy erroneously by concluding that the policy obligated Liberty Mutual to reimburse OES for all of the attorney's fees OES incurred in connection with the tort suit, rather than a pro-rata portion of those fees. The court affirmed as to the MSC issue. In this case, OES and Anadarko met the higher clear-and-convincing evidence burden of establishing mutual error in the contract's creation. However, the court concluded that the insurance policy only obligated Liberty Mutual to pay a pro-rata share of the attorney's fees, and modified the attorney's fees award, determining that the policy entitled OES to attorney's fees totaling $168,695.96. View "Richard v. Anadarko Petroleum" on Justia Law

This insurance coverage dispute between Federal and Medical Insureds related to various underlying lawsuits arising from SRHS's alleged underfunding of its Retirement Plan and Trust. Federal sought a declaration that it had limited liability and SRHS counterclaimed, seeking declaratory relief and alleging waiver, estoppel, civil conspiracy, breach of contract, tortious breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty, breach of the duty of good faith and fair dealing, bad faith, interference with contract and business relations, and conversion. The court rejected Medical Insureds' argument that Moeller v. American Guarantee & Liability Insurance Co. and the policy language required Federal to pay Defense Costs without regard to policy limits; concluded that the district court erred in determining that Defense Costs did not erode the policy limit, and Federal was entitled to judgment on this issue; and concluded that the constitutional claims fell within the Employee Benefits Program Laws exclusion 7(e) and the district court did not err in determining that there was no Executive Liability, Entity Liability, and Employment Practices Liability (ELI/EPL) Coverage as to the identified claims. Accordingly, the court reversed the district court's grant of summary judgment for Medical Insureds, rendered judgment for Federal, and affirmed the district court's grant of partial summary judgment for Federal regarding ELI/EPL Coverage. View "Federal Insurance Company v. Singing River Health" on Justia Law

Employee-appellant Tracy Meeks sued an insurer for bad faith refusal to timely comply with several orders of the Workers' Compensation Court awarding employee temporary total disability benefits after the insurer, without good cause, withheld employee's benefits on twenty-six separate occasions. Insurer moved for dismissal, asserting employee failed to obtain a certification order from the Workers' Compensation Court (a jurisdictional prerequisite for commencing a bad-faith action in district court). The District Court granted insurer's motion, but the Supreme Court reversed. Because the certification requirements were met here, employee was free to proceed in district court on his bad-faith claim against insurer for insurer's alleged bad faith refusal to provide temporary total disability benefits as ordered by the WCC. View "Meeks v. Guarantee Insurance Co." on Justia Law

Mark Furia was injured while working for Ajax Construction Company. After Furia filed a petition against Ajax in the Workers’ Compensation Court, Ajax petitioned the Workers’ Compensation Court to determine which insurer - Beacon Mutual Insurance Company or Liberty Mutual Insurance Company - was obligated to pay Furia’s claim. The trial judge concluded that Ajax was liable to Furia and that Beacon was primarily liable to Furia. The judge also found that Ajax had dual or overlapping coverage regarding Furia’s claim and, given the overlapping coverage, Liberty must reimburse Beacon for fifty percent of the benefits that Beacon paid to Furia. The Appellate Division vacated the trial judge’s decree and ordered that Beacon be held fully responsible for paying workers’ compensation benefits to Furia and to reimburse Liberty for any benefits paid to beacon by Liberty under the prior decree. The Supreme Court quashed the Appellate Division’s decree, holding that the Appellate Division erred in finding Beacon solely responsible for the payment of Furia’s benefits. View "Ajax Construction Co. v. Liberty Mutual Insurance Co." on Justia Law