English Justice For An American Company?, Christopher French
Dec 2017
English Justice For An American Company?, Christopher French
Christopher C. French
This Essay addresses the Halliburton Co. v. Chubb Bermuda Insurance Ltd. case, which is pending before England's Supreme Court. The issue before the Court is whether it is appropriate for the "neutral" arbitrator, who has a history of serving as a party-appointed arbitrator for Chubb, to serve as the "neutral" arbitrator in the matter while simultaneously serving as a party-appointed arbitrator for Chubb in another related arbitration proceeding involving the same insurance policy form and the same underlying Deepwater Horizon incident. The lower courts declined to remove the arbitrator. The Essay also addresses the question of whether London arbitration proceedings …
Insuring Against Cyber Risk: The Evolution Of An Industry (Introduction), Christopher French
Dec 2017
Insuring Against Cyber Risk: The Evolution Of An Industry (Introduction), Christopher French
Christopher C. French
Cyber risks are the newest risks of the 21st century. The breadth and cost of cyber attacks are astonishing. Worldwide damages caused by cyber attack are predicted to reach $6 trillion by 2021. Between 2015 and 2017, ransomware damages alone increased from $325 million to approximately $5 billion. In 2017, WannaCry ransomware shut down over 300,000 computer systems across 150 countries.
On April 13, 2018, the Penn State Law Review held a symposium to discuss the evolution of cyber risks and cyber insurance. The symposium was comprised of an eclectic group of legal practitioners and scholars who presented four articles. …
Hurricanes, Fraud, And Insurance: The Supreme Court Weighs In On, But Does Not Wade Into, The Concurrent Causation Conundrum In State Farm Fire And Casualty Company V. Rigsby, Chris French
May 2017
Hurricanes, Fraud, And Insurance: The Supreme Court Weighs In On, But Does Not Wade Into, The Concurrent Causation Conundrum In State Farm Fire And Casualty Company V. Rigsby, Chris French
Christopher C. French
In the December 6, 2016 Supreme Court decision, State Farm v. Rigsby, a homeowner’s house was damaged by Hurricane Katrina. The homeowner had homeowners insurance with State Farm and a flood insurance policy that was administered by State Farm on behalf of the federal government. The claims adjusters assigned by State Farm to handle the homeowner’s claim allegedly were instructed by State Farm to misclassify wind damage as flood damage in order to shift State Farm’s own liability for the loss to the federal government. The claims handlers filed a lawsuit against State Farm under the False Claims Act (FCA), …
Understanding Insurance Policies As Noncontracts: An Alternative Approach To Drafting And Construing These Unique Financial Instruments, Christopher French
Dec 2016
Understanding Insurance Policies As Noncontracts: An Alternative Approach To Drafting And Construing These Unique Financial Instruments, Christopher French
Christopher C. French
Insurance policies commonly are understood to be a species of standardized contracts. This Article challenges that conventional wisdom and argues that insurance policies do not actually qualify as contracts under the doctrinal and theoretical bases of contract formation. It examines the process by which insurance policies are created and sold, and measures that process against the requirements for contract formation. This Article also distinguishes insurance policies from other types of standardized contracts, such as wrap agreements, which currently are the subject of much litigation and scholarly commentary. It then explores the doctrinal and theoretical bases underlying the specialized rules that …
Insurance Policies: The Grandparents Of Contractual Black Holes, Christopher French
Dec 2016
Insurance Policies: The Grandparents Of Contractual Black Holes, Christopher French
Christopher C. French
In their recent article, The Black Hole Problem in Commercial Boilerplate, Professors Stephen Choi, Mitu Gulati, and Robert Scott identify a phenomenon found in standardized contracts they describe as “contractual black holes.” The concept of black holes comes from theoretical physics. Under the original hypothesis, the gravitational pull of a black hole is so strong that once light or information is pulled past an event horizon into a black hole, it cannot escape. In recent years, the theory has been reformulated and now the hypothesis is that some information can escape, but it is so degraded that it is virtually …
Sex, Videos, And Insurance: How Gawker Could Have Avoided Financial Responsibility For The $140 Million Hulk Hogan Sex Tape Verdict, Christopher French
May 2016
Sex, Videos, And Insurance: How Gawker Could Have Avoided Financial Responsibility For The $140 Million Hulk Hogan Sex Tape Verdict, Christopher French
Christopher C. French
On March 18, 2016, and March 22, 2016, a jury awarded Terry Bollea (a.k.a Hulk Hogan) a total of $140 million in compensatory and punitive damages against Gawker Media for posting less than two minutes of a video of Hulk Hogan having sex with his best friend’s wife. The award was based upon a finding that Gawker intentionally had invaded Hulk Hogan’s privacy by posting the video online. The case has been receiving extensive media coverage because it is a tawdry tale involving a celebrity, betrayal, adultery, sex, and the First Amendment. The case likely will be remembered by most …
A Battlefield Map For Nfl V. Insurance Industry Re: Concussion Liabilities, Christopher French
Dec 2015
A Battlefield Map For Nfl V. Insurance Industry Re: Concussion Liabilities, Christopher French
Christopher C. French
When the superstar athlete -“Iron Mike” Webster - a 9-time National Football League (NFL) Pro Bowler, 4-time Super Bowl Champion, Hall of Fame center for the Pittsburgh Steelers died at age 50 with severe brain dysfunction after becoming homeless and living in a truck, it was discovered he had a previously nameless disease, Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE). The discovery of CTE opened the floodgates on interest in delayed manifestation brain diseases caused by repeated blows to the head. As part of that flood, numerous class actions were brought by retired NFL football players against the NFL for their alleged …
Revisiting Construction Defects As “Occurrences” Under Cgl Insurance Policies, Christopher French
Dec 2015
Revisiting Construction Defects As “Occurrences” Under Cgl Insurance Policies, Christopher French
Christopher C. French
Imagine a situation in which a homeowner hires a contractor to redo a bathroom, for example, and the work is done incompetently such that the plumbing leaks and causes damage to other parts of the house. If the homeowner sues the contractor to recover the costs of repairing the faulty workmanship and the damage caused by the faulty workmanship, has there been an “occurrence” that is covered by the contractor’s Commercial General Liability (“CGL”) insurance policy? This article provides an answer to that question.
The issue of whether construction defects are occurrences under CGL insurance policies has been litigated frequently …
The Role Of The Profit Imperative In Risk Management, Christopher French
Dec 2014
The Role Of The Profit Imperative In Risk Management, Christopher French
Christopher C. French
Risks in the world abound. Every day there is a chance that each of us could be in a car accident. Or, one of us could be the victim of a tornado, flood or earthquake. Every day someone becomes deathly ill from an insidious disease. Our properties are in constant peril—one’s house could catch fire at any time or a tree could fall on it during a storm. Any one of these events could have devastating financial consequences, and they are just a few of the many risks that impact our daily lives. One of the principal ways we manage …
The “Ensuing Loss” Clause In Insurance Policies: The Forgotten And Misunderstood Antidote To Anti-Concurrent Causation Exclusions, Chris French
Dec 2011
The “Ensuing Loss” Clause In Insurance Policies: The Forgotten And Misunderstood Antidote To Anti-Concurrent Causation Exclusions, Chris French
Christopher C. French
As a result of the 1906 earthquake and fire in San Francisco which destroyed the city, a clause known as the “ensuing loss” clause was created to address concurrent causation situations in which a loss follows both a covered peril and an excluded peril. Ensuing loss clauses appear in the exclusions section of such policies and in essence they provide that coverage for a loss caused by an excluded peril is nonetheless covered if the loss “ensues” from a covered peril. Today, ensuing loss clauses are found in “all risk” property and homeowners policies, which cover all losses except for …
The “Non-Cumulation Clause”: An “Other Insurance” Clause By Another Name, Chris French
Dec 2011
The “Non-Cumulation Clause”: An “Other Insurance” Clause By Another Name, Chris French
Christopher C. French
How long-tail liability claims such as asbestos bodily injury claims and environmental property damage claims are allocated among multiple triggered policy years can result in the shifting of tens or hundreds of millions of dollars from one party to another. In recent years, insurers have argued that clauses commonly titled, “Prior Insurance and Non-Cumulation of Liability” (referred to herein as “Non-Cumulation Clauses”), which are found in commercial liability policies, should be applied to reduce or eliminate their coverage responsibilities for long-tail liability claims by shifting their coverage responsibilities to insurers that issued policies in earlier policy years. The insurers’ argument …
Debunking The Myth That Insurance Coverage Is Not Available Or Allowed For Intentional Torts Or Damages, Christopher French
Dec 2011
Debunking The Myth That Insurance Coverage Is Not Available Or Allowed For Intentional Torts Or Damages, Christopher French
Christopher C. French
Over the years, a myth has developed that insurance coverage is not available or allowed for intentional injuries or damage. This myth has two primary bases: one, the “fortuity” doctrine, which provides that insurance should only cover losses that happen by chance; and two, public policy, which allegedly disfavors allowing insurance for intentional injuries or damage. This article dispels that myth. Many types of liability insurance policies expressly cover intentional torts including trademark infringement, copyright infringement, invasion of privacy, defamation, disparagement, and improper employment practices such as discrimination. In addition, punitive damages, which typically are awarded for intentional misconduct, are …
The Causes Of The Medical Malpractice Crisis: An Analysis Of Claims Data And Insurance Company Finances, David J. Nye, Donald G. Gifford, Bernard L. Webb, Marvin A. Dewar
Jul 2010
The Causes Of The Medical Malpractice Crisis: An Analysis Of Claims Data And Insurance Company Finances, David J. Nye, Donald G. Gifford, Bernard L. Webb, Marvin A. Dewar
Donald G Gifford
No abstract provided.
