Law Commons^™

Inside The Black Box: Comment On Diamond And Vidmar, Valerie P. Hans

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

It is an honor to be invited to comment on the first publication of the Arizona Jury Project, a study of Arizona juries that includes videotaping and analysis of jury room discussions and deliberations. It is a remarkable and unique project, made possible by an unusual confluence of people, places, and events. In an insightful opinion some years ago, United States Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis observed that "[i]t is one of the happy incidents of the federal system that a single courageous State may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments …

Employment Law In A Changing Workplace, Katherine V.W. Stone

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Teaching Torts Without Insurance: A Second-Best Solution, David A. Fischer, Robert H. Jerry Ii

Faculty Publications

Teachers, scholars and practitioners have long appreciated the symbiotic relationship of torts and insurance. Indeed, the assertion that tort law and insurance law are intertwined is utterly unremarkable; many commentators have observed that tort law cannot be understood if the business of insurance and the law regulating it is ignored, and that insurance law cannot be understood if tort law is ignored. Several generations of law students have read casebooks, which in varying degrees pay homage to the connections between torts and insurance. Many law review articles and noteworthy books (or portions thereof) have plumbed the tort-insurance relationship. Although one …

Teaching Torts Without Insurance: A Second-Best Solution, David A. Fischer, Robert H. Jerry Ii

UF Law Faculty Publications

Teachers, scholars and practitioners have long appreciated the symbiotic relationship of torts and insurance. The authors examine how the study of torts is enriched when insurance concepts play a role in students' analysis. The discussion is divided into two parts. Part I offers a "macro" perspective on the connections between tort and insurance, summarizing the principal issues in play when the purposes of tort law are analyzed against the backdrop of first-party and third-party insurance compensation mechanisms. Part II provides a "micro" perspective on tort-insurance connections, taking a sample of discrete tort law principles, representative of those discussed in a …

Invalidating The Family Or Household Exclusion In Auto Insurance, Gregory S. Munro

Faculty Journal Articles & Other Writings

No abstract provided.

The New Psychological Contract: Implications Of The Changing Workplace For Labor And Employment Law, Katherine V.W. Stone

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

In this article, Professor Stone describes the profound changes that are occurring in the employment relationship in the United States. Firms are dismantling their internal labor markets and abandoning their implicit promises of orderly promotion and long-term job security. No longer is employment centered on a single, primary employer. Instead, employees operate in a boundaryless workplace in which they expect to move frequently between firms, and between divisions within firms, throughout their working lives. At the same time, employers and employees have a new understanding of their mutual obligations, a new psychological contract, in which expectations of job security and …

The Marriage Of Intellectual Property And Insurance Law: An Introduction, Leo P. Martinez

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Coverage For Unfair Competition Torts Under General Liability Policies: Will The "Intellectual Property" Tail Wag The Coverage Dog?, Francis J. Mootz Iii

McGeorge School of Law Scholarly Articles

No abstract provided.

Insurer Moral Hazard In The Workers' Compensation Crisis: Reforming Cost Inflation, Not Rate Suppression, Martha T. Mccluskey

Journal Articles

This article challenges the standard story of the insurance crisis that led to the near-collapse and major reform of a number of states’ workers’ compensation programs in the 1980s and 1990s.

In the prevailing account, insurance costs rose due to expanding costs of benefits for injured workers’, much of which was blamed on wasteful or abusive "moral hazard" by workers and their lawyers and doctors. Because state regulators had substantial power to control insurance rates, this account claims governments tried to suppress prices in the face of rising benefit costs in a misguided attempt to avoid political trade-offs between labor …

Environmental Insurance: Does It Defy The Rules, Amanda Leiter

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

Driving The Stake Into The Comparative Bad Faith Defense And Reverse Bad Faith Claims, Greg Munro

Faculty Journal Articles & Other Writings

This article reviews case law precedent from Montana and California that exposes holes in the legal theory of comparative fault in insurance bad faith.

The Insurer's Reservation Of Rights Letter And The Duty To Defend, Greg Munro

Faculty Journal Articles & Other Writings

This article examines the specific body of law and standard of care that has developed around the reservation of rights letters and the duty to defend.

Doctors, Hmos, Erisa, And The Public Interest After Pegram V. Herdrich, Jeffrey W. Stempel, Nadia Von Magdenko

Scholarly Works

The Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 was enacted in the wake of highly publicized pension disasters in order to protect employee pension rights. Born as a piece of pro-worker legislation, it initially was criticized by business groups as a cause of bureaucratic arteriosclerosis that was worse than the disease of pension failures. Even worse, it prompted many employers to consider dispensing with pension plans altogether rather than struggle with the administrative and financial obligations of ERISA. Business, labor, and the public all complained about the law's complexity. It even became something of a national joke as regulators took …

Recent Case Developments, Jeffrey W. Stempel

Scholarly Works

Recent case developments in Insurance Law in the years 2000 and 2001.

Coverage For Unfair Competition Torts Under General Liability Policies: Will The "Intellectual Property" Tail Wag The Coverage Dog?, Francis J. Mootz Iii

Scholarly Works

The scope of "advertising injury" coverage in general liability policies has been shrinking in response to the proliferation of liabilities caused by the growth of the cyber-economy. In response to this shrinking coverage under general liability policies, insurers have been quick to develop new endorsements and specialized products to fill the gaps in coverage. The author argues that significant commercial risks relating to unfair competition claims have been eliminated from coverage under general liability policies, but that there also appears to be no corresponding development of specific endorsements or stand-alone products to deal with this gap in coverage. Specifically, claims …

An Inconsistently Sensitive Mind: Richard Posner's Celebration Of Insurance Law And Continuing Blind Spots Of Econominalism, Jeffrey W. Stempel

Scholarly Works

Seventh Circuit Judge Richard Posner is well known for bringing economic analysis to bear on a host of issues, including infamously controversial notions such the market for baby sale. Not surprisingly, Posner's insurance law opinions reflect economics, but perhaps not to the degree one would expect. A review of Posner's 20 years of opinions relating to insurance issues reviews his pragmatic jurisprudence as well. Decisions frequently reflect not only economics but also situational context and considerations of business reality as well as a sophisticated grasp of basic insurance doctrine and contract law. As a general matter, Posner also displays considerably …

Recent Case Developments, Jeffrey W. Stempel

Scholarly Works

Recent case developments in Insurance Law in the years 2000 and 2001.

Cybercoverage For Cyber-Risks: An Overview Of Insurers' Responses To The Perils Of E-Commerce, Robert H. Jerry Ii, Michele L. Mekel

UF Law Faculty Publications

Insurers' responses to the risks inherent in e-commerce and the demand for coverage have been anything but uniform. Instead, the solutions are a patchwork of stop-gap measures and niche offerings, including: (1) exclusions to coverage; (2) modifications to existing policies in order to extend or to limit coverage; and (3) the creation of new policies that specifically target Internet-related liabilities and losses. These various measures have been applied in both the first- and third-party settings. This article presents an overview of some of the risks involved in the new "e-economy" and surveys how insurers are responding to these new risks.

Cybercoverage For Cyber-Risks: An Overview Of Insurers' Responses To The Perils Of E-Commerce, Robert H. Jerry Ii, Michele L. Mekel

Faculty Publications

With nearly seven percent of the world's population currently online and e-commerce forecast to hit $6.8 trillion by 2004, one need not be Nostradamus to predict that the Internet means great change for all industries - including the insurance industry. Presently, however, the proverbial cart is leading the horse as the insurance industry struggles to develop strategies to quantify, cover, and contain "cyber-risks." Policyholders also face new challenges as they confront the possibility that their traditional insurance coverages are woefully inadequate either to secure their electronic and intellectual property assets or to guard against their potential e-commerce liabilities to third …

The Current Life Insurance Crisis: How The Law Should Respond, Kyle D. Logue

Articles

This article explores some of the issues raised by the new evidence of underinsurance. Part I explores the initial theoretical question: why do people buy life insurance? Put differently, what function does life insurance serve? Part II provides some background on the life insurance market as it currently exists. Thus, Part II summarizes the major types of life insurance that are currently offered and summarizes the main elements of the current regulatory regime for life insurance companies. Part III then provides support for the claim that households tend to drastically underconsume life insurance. Section A of that Part summarizes the …