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Full-Text Articles in Law

30 Years Removed, Oil-Spill Liability Insurance's Evolution Since The 1989 Exxon Valdez Incident, Rejo Mathew Jan 2024

30 Years Removed, Oil-Spill Liability Insurance's Evolution Since The 1989 Exxon Valdez Incident, Rejo Mathew

Ocean and Coastal Law Journal

In the thirty years since the Exxon Valdez incident, much has changed. This article looks back at the events of the accident and the subsequent changes to the marine pollution insurance industry, from the statutes regulating oil tankers in 1989 to the Oil Pollution Act of the 1990. The regulatory framework resulting from the Exxon Valdez is examined and compared to the litigation deriving from the spill.


Patient Decision Aids Improve Patient Safety And Reduce Medical Liability Risk, Thaddeus Mason Pope Mar 2022

Patient Decision Aids Improve Patient Safety And Reduce Medical Liability Risk, Thaddeus Mason Pope

Maine Law Review

Tort-based doctrines of informed consent have utterly failed to assure that patients understand the risks, benefits, and alternatives to the healthcare they receive. Fifty years of experience with the doctrine of informed consent have shown it to be an abject catastrophe. Most patients lack an even minimal understanding of their treatment options. But there is hope. Substantial evidence shows that patient decision aids (PDAs) and shared decision making can bridge the gap between the theory and practice of informed consent. These evidence-based educational tools empower patients to make decisions with significantly more knowledge and less decisional conflict than clinician-patient discussions …


The Color Of Property And Auto Insurance: Time For Change, Jennifer B. Wriggins Jan 2022

The Color Of Property And Auto Insurance: Time For Change, Jennifer B. Wriggins

Faculty Publications

Insurance company executives issued statements condemning racism and urging change throughout society and in the insurance industry after the huge Black Lives Matter demonstrations in summer 2020. The time therefore is ripe for examining insurance as it relates to race and racism, including history and current regulation. Two of the most important types of personal insurance are property and automobile. Part I begins with history, focusing on property insurance, auto insurance, race, and racism in urban areas around the mid-twentieth century. Private insurers deemed large areas of cities where African Americans lived to be “blighted” and refused to insure all …


Comprehensive General Liability Policies Under Maine's Ground Water Protection Act: The Law Court's Extraordinary Definition Of Ordinary Intelligence, Andrew M. Strongin Apr 2020

Comprehensive General Liability Policies Under Maine's Ground Water Protection Act: The Law Court's Extraordinary Definition Of Ordinary Intelligence, Andrew M. Strongin

Maine Law Review

In Patrons Oxford Mutual Insurance Co. v. Marios, the Supreme Judicial Court of Maine, sitting as the Law Court, joined the current debate in the state and federal judiciaries as to whether comprehensive general liability (CGL) insurance policies obligate the insurer to indemnify the insured for cleanup costs incurred pursuant to governmentally mandated cleanup of hazardous substances. In that decision, the court held that cleanup costs incurred pursuant to court order authorized by the Maine Underground Oil Storage Facilities and Ground Water Protection Act are not covered by such policies. The explicit basis of the court's decision was that the …


Comprehensive General Liability Policies Under Maine's Ground Water Protection Act: The Law Court's Extraordinary Definition Of Ordinary Intelligence, Andrew M. Strongin Apr 2020

Comprehensive General Liability Policies Under Maine's Ground Water Protection Act: The Law Court's Extraordinary Definition Of Ordinary Intelligence, Andrew M. Strongin

Maine Law Review

In Patrons Oxford Mutual Insurance Co. v. Marios, the Supreme Judicial Court of Maine, sitting as the Law Court, joined the current debate in the state and federal judiciaries as to whether comprehensive general liability (CGL) insurance policies obligate the insurer to indemnify the insured for cleanup costs incurred pursuant to governmentally mandated cleanup of hazardous substances. In that decision, the court held that cleanup costs incurred pursuant to court order authorized by the Maine Underground Oil Storage Facilities and Ground Water Protection Act are not covered by such policies. The explicit basis of the court's decision was that the …


Advancing The Aquaculture Industry Through The Federal Crop Insurance Program, Matthew H. Bowen Jan 2019

Advancing The Aquaculture Industry Through The Federal Crop Insurance Program, Matthew H. Bowen

Ocean and Coastal Law Journal

In recent times, the aquaculture industry has experienced dramatic growth. The growth of the industry is a direct result of an increase in demand for seafood, and a decrease in supply from wild fisheries. The industry, however, is also experiencing growing pains. Aquaculture species, compared to their wild counterparts, are at a higher risk of catastrophic loss from a variety of different perils. These perils make investment in the aquaculture industry significantly risky. The federal crop insurance program could be a tool that mitigates these risks, but the program was designed around terrestrial agriculture, and while aquaculture may be covered …


Insurer Prejudice Analysis Of An Expanding Doctrine In Insurance Coverage Law, Richard L. Suter Apr 2018

Insurer Prejudice Analysis Of An Expanding Doctrine In Insurance Coverage Law, Richard L. Suter

Maine Law Review

All contracts of insurance place certain requirements on the insured both before and after a covered loss has occurred. For example, all insurance policies require that an insured notify the insurer of a covered loss and cooperate with the insurer in the investigation of the loss and in the pursuit or defense of any claims arising out of the loss. Traditionally, if an insured failed to comply with such notification or cooperation requirements, the insurer could flatly deny coverage of the claim. Recently, however, an increasing number of courts are requiring that the insurer show that it has been prejudiced …


The Unappreciated Importance, For Small Business Defendants, Of The Duty To Settle, Robert Heidt Oct 2017

The Unappreciated Importance, For Small Business Defendants, Of The Duty To Settle, Robert Heidt

Maine Law Review

This paper suggests how the duty to settle, which requires liability insurers to pay damages awarded against their insured in excess of the policy limits when the insurers reject a reasonable settlement offer within the limits, may have indirectly led certain of their insureds--small business recreational vendors like horse riding stables or some motels offering swimming pools with diving boards--to sanitize the recreational activities they offer. More generally, the duty to settle's effect on the lawsuits injured customers brought against small business recreational vendors may have led a wide variety of such vendors to sanitize activities the vendors previously offered …


Anthem Health Plans Of Maine, Inc. V. Superintendent Of Insurance: Judicial Restraint Or Judicial Abdication?, David E. Sorensen Oct 2017

Anthem Health Plans Of Maine, Inc. V. Superintendent Of Insurance: Judicial Restraint Or Judicial Abdication?, David E. Sorensen

Maine Law Review

When Maine’s Superintendent of Insurance told the state’s largest health insurer that it could not profit in 2009, her decision ended up on appeal before the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, sitting as the Law Court, in Anthem Health Plans of Maine, Inc. v. Superintendent of Insurance. As part of its annual rate approval process, Anthem had requested a 3% profit and risk margin on its individual lines of health insurance in Maine. Superintendent Mila Kofman denied this request under her statutory authority to deny any rate increase proposals that are “excessive, inadequate or unfairly discriminatory.” The Superintendent held that a …


In Deep: Dilemmas Of Federal Flood Insurance Reform, Jennifer Wriggins Jan 2015

In Deep: Dilemmas Of Federal Flood Insurance Reform, Jennifer Wriggins

Faculty Publications

Floods are the most expensive form of natural disaster in the United States. Recent massive floods in Louisiana show the magnitude of the devastation floods can cause. Climate change and population growth are likely to lead in the coming decades to more severe, frequent, and costly floods. How we pay for flood losses is an urgent public policy issue. The National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) provides most of the flood insurance policies on homes in the United States. The U.S. Flood Insurance Program is a complex scheme that uses insurance coverage subsidies, mandates, and other tools to support various policies …


Mandates, Markets, And Risk: Auto Insurance And The Affordable Care Act, Jennifer Wriggins Jan 2012

Mandates, Markets, And Risk: Auto Insurance And The Affordable Care Act, Jennifer Wriggins

Faculty Publications

Now that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) individual health insurance mandate has been upheld by the United States Supreme Court, it is an opportune time to examine precedents for the individual mandate that were not considered in the legislative debate or litigation about the ACA’s constitutionality, particularly auto insurance mandates. Although opponents’ arguments were cast largely as Commerce Clause claims, the arguments have a deeper foundation as claims about liberty and coercion which go far beyond the Commerce Clause. Although auto insurance mandates are obviously different, particularly in that they are state rather than federal, auto insurance mandates can help …