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Full-Text Articles in Litigation

Liability Cure-All For Insidious Disease Claims, Susan Frankewich Jan 2013

Liability Cure-All For Insidious Disease Claims, Susan Frankewich

Pepperdine Law Review

Recent decisions handed down in various circuits have created virtual chaos in predicting the liability and damage amounts of insidious disease claims. At least three substantially divergent theories have been adopted to impute liability to the manufacturers of the disease catalysts. Additionally, a new trust fund concept has been used on a limited basis to reconcile differences in court decisions. The trust fund approach is relatively flexible and simple to apply in apportioning damages for insidious disease claims. The author examines and analyzes these three liability theories. In conclusion, the adoption of the trust fund concept is recommended.


The Relationship Between Defense Counsel, Policyholders, And Insurers: Nevada Rides Yellow Cab Toward "Two-Client" Model Of Tripartite Relationship. Are Cumis Counsel And Malpractice Claims By Insurers Next?, Jeffrey W. Stempel Jan 2007

The Relationship Between Defense Counsel, Policyholders, And Insurers: Nevada Rides Yellow Cab Toward "Two-Client" Model Of Tripartite Relationship. Are Cumis Counsel And Malpractice Claims By Insurers Next?, Jeffrey W. Stempel

Scholarly Works

It happens constantly in civil litigation. An insurance company hires a lawyer to defend its policyholder from a third party’s claim of injury. But just who is the lawyer’s “client?” Is it the policyholder who is the named defendant in the case and is “represented” in court proceedings? Or is it the insurer who, in most cases, selected the attorney, pays the attorney, supervises the litigation, and has (by the terms of the liability insurance policy) the right to settle the case, even over the objections of the policyholder? Ordinarily, the liability insurer has both the duty to defend a …


Liability Insurance As Tort Regulation: Six Ways That Liability Insurance Shapes Tort Law In Action, Tom Baker Jan 2005

Liability Insurance As Tort Regulation: Six Ways That Liability Insurance Shapes Tort Law In Action, Tom Baker

All Faculty Scholarship

Leaving aside difficult to interpret doctrinal developments, such as the abrogation of traditional immunities, liability insurance has at least the following six impacts on tort law in action. First, for claims against all but the wealthiest individuals and organizations, liability insurance is a de facto element of tort liability. Second, liability insurance limits are a de facto cap on tort damages. Third, tort claims are shaped to match the available liability insurance, with the result that liability insurance policy exclusions become de facto limits on tort liability. Fourth, liability insurance makes lawsuits against ordinary individuals and small organizations into repeat …


Recent Case Developments, Jeffrey W. Stempel Jan 2001

Recent Case Developments, Jeffrey W. Stempel

Scholarly Works

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


Recent Case Developments, Jeffrey W. Stempel Jan 2001

Recent Case Developments, Jeffrey W. Stempel

Scholarly Works

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


Recent Case Developments, Jeffrey W. Stempel Jan 2000

Recent Case Developments, Jeffrey W. Stempel

Scholarly Works

Recent case developments in Insurance Law in the years 1999 and 2000.


Recent Case Developments, Jeffrey W. Stempel Jan 2000

Recent Case Developments, Jeffrey W. Stempel

Scholarly Works

Recent case developments in Insurance Law in the years 1999 and 2000.


A Mixed Bag For Chicken Little: Analyzing Year 2000 Claims And Insurance Coverage, Jeffrey W. Stempel Jan 1999

A Mixed Bag For Chicken Little: Analyzing Year 2000 Claims And Insurance Coverage, Jeffrey W. Stempel

Scholarly Works

A visitor from another planet reading the popular and insurance trade press would probably conclude that the world stands on the abyss of a business, tort, and insurance crisis of unprecedented proportion. Media coverage of an impending Year 2000 “crisis” has reached a fevered pitch, with predictions of both a gigantic volume of Year 2000 claims and a correspondingly large amount of insurance coverage litigation. Many predict that the Year 2000 problem (also known as the “Y2K” or “Millennium Bug” problem) will create coverage controversies and costs dwarfing major insurance battles of the late twentieth century such as those concerning …


Recent Case Developments, Jeffrey W. Stempel Jan 1999

Recent Case Developments, Jeffrey W. Stempel

Scholarly Works

Recent case developments in Insurance law in the year 1998-1999.


Reason And Pollution: Construing The "Absolute" Pollution Exclusion In Context And In Light Of Its Purpose And Party Expectations, Jeffrey W. Stempel Jan 1998

Reason And Pollution: Construing The "Absolute" Pollution Exclusion In Context And In Light Of Its Purpose And Party Expectations, Jeffrey W. Stempel

Scholarly Works

Responding to the flurry of environmental coverage litigation over the application of the “sudden and accidental” pollution exclusion, the insurance industry during the mid-1980s largely adopted new standard pollution exclusion language for commercial general liability (CGL) policies. Since the mid-1980s, the standard form CGL has included the so-called absolute pollution exclusion, which provides that the insurance does not apply to bodily injury or property damage “arising out of the actual, alleged or threatened discharge, dispersal, seepage, migration, release, or escape of pollutants.” A “pollutant” is defined as “any solid, liquid, gaseous or thermal irritant or contaminant, including smoke, vapor, soot, …


Recent Case Developments, Jeffrey W. Stempel Jan 1998

Recent Case Developments, Jeffrey W. Stempel

Scholarly Works

Recent case developments in Insurance Law in years 1998 and 1999.


Recent Case Developments, Jeffrey W. Stempel Jan 1998

Recent Case Developments, Jeffrey W. Stempel

Scholarly Works

Recent case developments in Insurance law in the year 1998.


Reinsurance: Bad Faith Considerations And Insolvency Dilemma, Hui-Ju Hsieh Jan 1992

Reinsurance: Bad Faith Considerations And Insolvency Dilemma, Hui-Ju Hsieh

LLM Theses and Essays

Reinsurance is insurance that an insurance company purchases from another insurance company. The original insurance company is called the reinsured, and the insurance company that is contracted is called the reinsurer. The main purpose of reinsurance is to disperse or spread the risk of loss. The reinsurance relationship is frequently characterized as an exercise of fiduciary responsibility based upon an undertaking of utmost good faith between contracting parties. However, disputes arise; most litigation involving reinsurance has been between reinsurers and persons not party to the reinsurance agreement. This paper’s first major area of discussion is the relationship between the reinsurer …


Concurrent Causation In Insurance Contracts, William Conant Brewer Jr. Jun 1961

Concurrent Causation In Insurance Contracts, William Conant Brewer Jr.

Michigan Law Review

A great deal of work and thought has been devoted to concurrent causation problems in the field of torts. Less attention has been paid to the insurance cases, and no serious effort has been made to formulate the separate rules applicable to them. It is the thesis of this article that concurrent causation problems which arise under an insurance contract must be handled somewhat differently from those which arise in connection with tort litigation, and that the tendency to borrow rules of law from the larger tort field and apply them to the smaller volume of insurance cases can only …


Insurance -- 1955 Tennessee Survey, Robert W. Sturdivant Aug 1955

Insurance -- 1955 Tennessee Survey, Robert W. Sturdivant

Vanderbilt Law Review

If a period of three years be sufficient time to detect any trend in the field of insurance litigation, there is reflected a decrease in the number of cases reaching our appellate courts having to do with automobile liability insurance and an increase in the number of cases having to do with health and accident policies--the latter probably being the result of the extension of group insurance. In the past year there were only two reported decisions in the state courts and one in the federal court sitting in Tennessee involving automobile liability policies. During the present Survey period, there …