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Mixed Policies And Separability After Folksamerica, Graydon S. Staring

Graydon S. Staring

The Kirby decision by the Supreme Court in 2004 is a landmark in admiralty jurisdiction of contracts with both marine and non-marine elements. The Folksamerica decision by the Second Circuit, the insurance case that follows it in 2005, is a distinctly important precedent requiring additional analysis from case to case in applying the new standard to insurance policies. The old prescription that maritime contracts be purely maritime with its exception for merely incidental non-maritime elements is overruled. Contracts apparently mixed are to be examined to determine whether their principal objective is to effectuate maritime commerce, and if so they are …