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Recent Case Developments, Jeffrey W. Stempel

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

Recent Case Developments, Jeffrey W. Stempel

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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

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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 …

Judge-Made Insurance That Was Not On The Menu: Schmidt V. Smith And The Confluence Of Text, Expectation, And Public Policy In The Realm Of Employment Practices Liability, Jeffrey W. Stempel

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In Schmidt v. Smith, the New Jersey Supreme Court caught more than a few observers by surprise. New Jersey courts have generally issued opinions regarded as pro-claimant and pro-policyholders. But everyone's taste for recompense and coverage has limits. In Schmidt, the court exceeded those limits for many observers by holding that despite what it regarded as clear contract language in an exclusion, an insurer providing Employers’ Liability (“EL”) coverage along with Workers' Compensation (“WC”) insurance for the employer was required to provide coverage in a case of blatant sexual harassment bordering on criminal assault. In doing so, the Schmidt court, …

Recent Case Developments, Jeffrey W. Stempel

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

Insurance Coverage Of Employment Discrimination Claims, Francis J. Mootz Iii

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This article discusses insurance coverage of employment discrimination claims under both existing policies and emerging Employment Practices Liability Insurance policies: The first part describes the “three *7 dimensional model” of liability insurance; the second part describes general principles of interpretation as applied by courts to insurance policies; and the third part describes public policy limitations on the interpretation of insurance policies. These first three sections establish the background necessary for analyzing the availability of insurance coverage for employment disputes. The fourth part of the article then analyzes the potential for coverage under standard types of liability insurance, while the fifth …

Insuring Employer Liability For Hostile Work Environment Claims: How Changes In Discrimination Law May Affect The Growing Market For Employment-Related Practices Liability Insurance, Francis J. Mootz Iii

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Assessing the role that Employment Practices Liability Insurance might play in the future requires an understanding of two murky areas of law: employment law and insurance coverage law. In Part I of the Article I discuss the evolution of employer liability for hostile work environment sexual harassment. In Part II of the Article I analyze the consequences for insurance coverage that follow from recognizing that liability for hostile work environment sexual harassment is grounded on negligence principles.

Foreward: Employment Practies Liability Insurance And The Changing American Workplace, Francis J. Mootz Iii

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In the past fifteen years there has been substantial insurance coverage litigation as employers have attempted to secure coverage under their liability insurance program for employment-related practices liabilities. In recognition of this significant development of a body of law, and growing out of an American Bar Association Annual Meeting panel discussion in which I participated, the Western New England Law Review published a Symposium in 1996 entitled, Insurance Coverage of Employment Disputes. Employers continue to seek insurance coverage for these liabilities under their traditional liability insurance policies, but the situation has dramatically changed in the past several years. On the …

Domtar Baby: Misplaced Notions Of Equitable Apportionment Create A Thicket Of Potential Unfairness For Insurance Policyholders, Jeffrey W. Stempel

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Minnesota has an enduring reputation as a progressive, even liberal state hospitable to the underdog and concerned for fairness. This is hardly a surprise for the home state of prominent liberal politicians such as Hubert Humphrey, Walter Mondale, Eugene McCarthy and Paul Wellstone. The perception of Minnesota liberalism, populism, or pro-plaintiff sympathies extends to the technical legal realm as well. Lawyers know about prominent Minnesota cases favoring claimants. Many are reprinted in casebooks or otherwise disproportionately well-known. Most recently, Minnesota was again in the news as the state unwilling to join in a proposed national settlement of claims against the …

Embracing Descent: The Bankruptcy Of A Business Paradigm For Conceptualizing And Regulating The Legal Profession, Jeffrey W. Stempel

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Lawyers are said to travel in packs, or at least pairs, and in the popular parlance are often compared to hoards of locusts, herds of cattle, or unruly mobs. However, at least for purposes of assessing concerns with professionalism currently surrounding the bar and the public, whether attorneys are more or less social than other human animals does not matter. My point is simply that lawyers are social beings; like other human beings in social and occupational groups, lawyers behave largely in accordance with group norms, in much the same way peer pressure led Julian English toward juvenile delinquency in …

Unreason In Action: A Case Study In The Wrong Approach To Construing The Liability Insurance Pollution Exclusion, Jeffrey W. Stempel

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For more than twenty-five years, a significant component of the scholarly commentary on insurance law has focused on the so-called “reasonable expectations doctrine” enunciated by then-Professor (now Judge) Robert Keeton in his justly celebrated 1970 article. The reasonable expectations principle made a seemingly sudden emergence with the appearance of Keeton's article and has held particular attraction to academics while simultaneously prompting resistance from elements of the bench and bar, and particularly from the insurance industry. The doctrine's life to date can be described as one of early growth followed by subsequent retreat and dilution, with continuing controversy.

However, despite the …

Unmet Expectations: Undue Restriction Of The Reasonable Expectations Approach And The Misleading Mythology Of Judicial Role, Jeffrey W. Stempel

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A complete and open embrace of the pure version of the doctrine as enunciated in Judge Keeton's famous article--which expressly provides for finding coverage consistent with the objectively reasonable expectations of the policyholder even where those expectations are contradicted by apparently clear policy language --is viewed by much of the legal and political mainstream as too inconsistent with the prevailing American paradigm of judicial restraint, strict construction of disputed texts, and minimal government involvement in market activity. Some of this resistance to reasonable expectations is the product of an unrealistic reification of the prevailing American politico-legal philosophy of judicial restraint. …

Symposium, The Florida Tobacco Litigation -- Fact, Law, Policy, And Significance, Jeffrey W. Stempel

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This is the transcript of the Florida tobacco litigation symposium, discussing the s$11.3 billion settlement concerning tobacco in the state of Florida. Jeffrey W. Stempel served as co-chair and moderator of the symposium.

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

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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

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

Recent Case Developments, Jeffrey W. Stempel

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Recent case developments in Insurance law in the year 1998.

Recent Case Developments, Jeffrey W. Stempel

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Recent case developments in Insurance Law in year 1997.

Principles Of Insurance Coverage: A Guide For The Employment Lawyer, Francis J. Mootz Iii

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Employment lawyers have witnessed a virtual revolution in the law of employment relations during the past thirty years. Although the federal government intervened substantially in private employment relationships in response to the economic catastrophe of the Great Depression, employers remained largely free of regulation until the explosion of statutes and common law developments that commenced in the 1960s and continues today. Recent developments in common law tort and contract principles are particularly troubling for defense counsel in employment matters, since the resulting doctrinal uncertainty renders it difficult to assess the client's exposure with any assurance until the appeals in the …

Foreward, Symposium: Insurance Coverage Of Employment Disputes, Francis J. Mootz Iii

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This Symposium addresses the most recent insurance coverage issue that requires mastery not only of insurance law concepts but also a rapidly developing area of substantive law. Employers increasingly are finding themselves subject to state and federal regulation of the terms, conditions, and duration of their relationship with employees. The liabilities associated with increased governmental regulation represent a major financial exposure, leading many employers to demand coverage under their various insurance policies. This rapidly evolving area of insurance law achieved some measure of public notice with the recent disclosure that two insurance companies already have paid out nearly a million …

Interpreting Insurance Policies, Jeffrey W. Stempel

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Like any other contract, an insurance policy may become the subject of a legal dispute. When disputes arise over insurance coverage, lawyers must combine their skill in contract interpretation with their knowledge of insurance law, bringing both to bear on the special problems related to this type of contract. Each dispute has unique traits, but a few basic ground rules of contract law and insurance law can help you interpret insurance policies and resolve disputes over insurance coverage.

Reassessing The Sophisticated Policyholder Defense In Insurance Coverage Litigation, Jeffrey W. Stempel

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Insurance law often is ironically regarded as both consistent and confusing. However, the 1980s saw significant flowering in the development of an insurance coverage interpretation doctrine that, although seriously flawed in its present form, offers the as yet untapped potential of substantial improvement in judicial construction of commercial insurance policies through seemingly inconsistent treatment of insurance coverage disputes.

During the past two decades, in response to the prodding of lawyers representing insurers, courts have increasingly noted that not all insurance policyholders are equal. Some have more money and bargaining clout than others. Some have more sophistication and understanding about the …

Profits In Subrogation: An Insurer's Claim To Be More Than Indemnified, Jay S. Bybee

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“[I]f the assured is not entitled to retain an excess against the insurer, and the insurer … is not entitle to receive the excess from the assured, what happens to the excess?” This question, posed by Lord Justice Megaw in L. Lucas Ltd. v. Export Credits Guarantee Department, is bred by the juxtaposition of two subrogation rules. The right to subrogation, being in nature like restitution, entitles the holder of the right only to reimbursement and, under a contract of insurance, “the assured … shall be fully indemnified, but shall never be more than fully indemnified.” The confusion that distribution …