Insurance Law Commons^™

The Litigation Landscape Of Fraternity And Sorority Hazing: Defenses, Evidence, And Damages, Gregory S. Parks, Elizabeth Grindell

Washington and Lee Law Review

In recent years, increasing public and media attention has focused on hazing, especially in collegiate fraternities and sororities. Whether it is because of the deaths, major injuries, or litigation, both criminal and civil, collegiate fraternities and sororities have received increased scrutiny. In this Article, we explore a range of tactical considerations that lawyers must consider—from defenses to evidentiary concerns. We also explore how damages are contemplated in the context of hazing litigation.

Identifying The Legitimate Role Of The Value Of A Statistical Life In Legal Contexts, W. Kip Viscusi

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

This article is based on my keynote address at the American Academy of Economic and Financial Experts conference in which I examined some of the implications for legal contexts of my book, Pricing Lives: Guideposts for a Safer Society. The value of a statistical life (VSL) provides an economic measure of the efficient cost-risk tradeoff rate for mortality risk decisions. Consequently, the VSL is well suited to serving as a measure of the benefits of mortality risk reduction for government regulatory policies and for corporate risk decisions. The tort liability counterpart of this function is using the VSL to assess …

Policing Corporate Conduct Toward Minority Communities: An Insurance Law Perspective On The Use Of Race In Calculating Tort Damages, Dhruti J. Patel

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Courts commonly use U.S. Department of Labor actuarial tables, which explicitly take into account the race of the tort victim, to determine average national wage, work-life expectancy, and life expectancy. This practice has led to wide discrepancies between average damage awards for minority plaintiffs compared to white plaintiffs even if both plaintiffs are similarly situated. While recent legal scholarship criticizes the use of race-based tables and addresses the Equal Protection and incentive concerns such tables present, few courts have deviated from the explicit use of race in determining tort damages.

Though the use of demographic features, such as race, to …

In Defense Of The Restatement Of Liability Insurance Law, Tom Baker, Kyle D. Logue

Articles

The importance of liability law to the American system of justice, and to the US economy in general, are well known. Somewhat less well known, at least among non-lawyers, is the corresponding centrality of liability insurance. For most non-contractual legal claims for damages that are brought against individuals or firms, there is some form of liability insurance coverage. Such coverage, provided by state-regulated insurance companies, ranges from auto and homeowners’ policies (sold to consumers throughout the country) to commercial general liability policies (sold to businesses of all sizes) to professional liability policies of various sorts (including Directors and Officers coverage …

In California Excess Liability Cases, Does “Bad Faith” In Law Equal “Strict Liability” In Practice?, Roger D. Marlow, Ronald E. Magnuson

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

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.

Reimbursing Hazardous Waste Cleanup Costs Under Cercla: A Move Toward Re-Establishing A Faithful Application Of State Insurance Law, Gary M. Miller

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Selling Structured Settlements: The Uncertain Effect Of Anti-Assignment Clauses , Gregory Scott Crespi

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Claims And Coverage In Montana For Damage To A Victim's Family Members, Greg Munro

Faculty Journal Articles & Other Writings

This article explores those situations in which Montana tort law now recognizes secondary injuries to family members resulting from primary severe injuries or death of another family member, which recognition may invoke additional auto insurance coverage. The article first makes a short survey of the development of Montana tort law insofar as it has come to take cognizance of family injuries. The article then looks at the application of insurance law to those claims with special emphasis on recent cases.

The Unappreciated Inportance, For Small Business Defendants, Of The Duty To Settle, Robert H. Heidt

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Offsetting Risks, Ariel Porat

Michigan Law Review

Under prevailing tort law, an injurer who must choose between Course of Action A, which creates a risk of 500 (there is a probability of .1 that a harm of 5000 will result), and Course of Action B, which creates a risk of 400 (there is a probability of.] that a harm of 4000 will result), and who negligently opts for the former will be held liable for the entire harm of 5000 that materializes. This full liability forces the injurer to pay damages that are five times higher than would be necessary to internalize the risk of 100 that …

The Insurance Aspects Of Damages, Robert H. Jerry Ii, Douglas R. Richmond

UF Law Faculty Publications

"[I]t is difficult ... to imagine an event or transaction that does not involve insurance in some way." So it is with the most salient event in the lives of Tony and Donna Sabia, whose son Tony John Sabia, or "Little Tony," was born with profound disabilities. In the final analysis, the ability of Tony and Donna to pay for the future medical care and living expenses needed by their son depends on whether they can reach the liability insurance coverage possessed by the health care providers who attended Donna and Little Tony at the time of his birth. It …

State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co. V. Campbell: Refining Bmw Of North America, Inc. V. Gore And Further Restricting Punitive Damages, Bridget E. Leonard

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Teaching Real Torts: Using Barry Werth's Damages In The Law School Classroom, Tom Baker

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Recent Case Developments, Jeffrey W. Stempel

Scholarly Works

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

The Value Of Life In Legal Contexts: Survey And Critique, W. Kip Viscusi

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Value of life issues traditionally pertain to insurance of the losses of accident victims, for which replacement of the economic loss is often an appropriate concept. Deterrence measures of the value of life focus on risk-money tradeoffs involving small changes in risk. Using market data for risky jobs and product risk contexts often yields substantial estimates of the value of life in the range of $3 million to $9 million. These estimates are useful in providing guidance for regulatory policy and assessments of liability. However, use of these values to determine compensation, known as hedonic damages, leads to excessive insurance.

Recent Case Developments, Jeffrey W. Stempel

Scholarly Works

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

The Law Of Insurance Company Claim Misconduct In West Virginia, Thomas C. Cady, Amy Andrews, Daniel Cuppett, Mark Glover, Mary Loss

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Substantially Prevailed Damages: Fee Shifting In West Virginia Insurance Law, Richard L. Costella

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Review Of: Making Decisions About Liability And Insurance (Colin Camerer & Howard Kunreuther Eds.), Joseph M. Carreiro Jr.

RISK: Health, Safety & Environment (1990-2002)

Review of: Making Decisions about Liability and Insurance (Colin Camerer & Howard Kunreuther eds., Kluwer Academic Publishers 1993). Figures, index, notes, tables. ISBN 0-7923-9393-7 [139 pp. Cloth $89.95. 101 Phillip Drive, Assinippi Park, Norwell MA 02061.1

Medical Maloccurrence Insurance: A First Party No-Fault Insurance Proposal For Resolving The Medical Malpractice Insurance Controversy, Larry M. Pollack

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Part I of this Note examines the broad, underlying themes of tort theory and argues that, in general, the tort system's primary responsibility should be compensation, rather than deterrence of risk taking. In so far as the production of goods and services causes injury, such losses should be shared and spread as widely and proportionately as possible. Part II discusses the history and nature of the medical malpractice insurance crisis. Part III evaluates the numerous systemic solutions suggested by various commentators. Finally, Part IV proposes a new solution: first party, no-fault medical maloccurrence insurance (MMI).

Bad Faith In First Party Insurance Contracts—What's Next, Paula J. Casey

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

No abstract provided.

Indiana's Allowance Of Punitive Damages In Contract Actions Against Insurance Companies: How New Is It?, Susan Marguet

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

No-Fault Automobile Insurance In Pennsylvania - A Constitutional Analysis, Joel M. Martel

Villanova Law Review (1956 - )

No abstract provided.

Recent Cases, Law Review Staff

Vanderbilt Law Review

Conflict of Laws--Mexican Bilateral Divorce Decree Recognized Even Though Neither Party was a Mexican Domiciliary At Time of Divorce

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Constitutional Law--Section 504 of LMRDA a Bill of Attainder

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Corporations--DeFacto Merger--Dissenters' Rights--Construction of Merger and Amendment Statutes

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Criminal Law--Search and Seizure--Standing Granted for Dyer Act Prosecutions Without Allegation of Possession

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Damages--Restitutionary Relief for Breach of Contract Granted Under the Tucker Act to a Government Contractor

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Federal Employers' Liability Act--Applicability of "In Whole or in Part" Rule of Proximate Cause to Employer's Efforts To Prove Contributory Negligence Plaintiff brought suit under the Federal Employers' Liability Act'

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Damages--Liability Insurance And Punitive Damages, Harold Dale Brewster Jr.

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Insurance--1959 Tennessee Survey, William R. Andersen

Vanderbilt Law Review

What is the meaning of the term "actual cash value" in the standard fire policy? The middle section of the court of appeals, following a prior Tennessee case and the weight of authority, held that the phrase is synonomous with "market value" only where the goods are readily replaceable in a current market. Where there is no market, or where the market value is inadequate to properly indemnify the insured, "actual cash value" means the "'value to the owner' or the loss he suffers in being deprived of the goods." Since the goods involved in this case were personal effects, …

Insurance -- 1958 Tennessee Survey, Robert W. Sturdivant

Vanderbilt Law Review

The case of Clinchfield R.R. v. United States Fidelity & Guaranty Co.' involved the question of whether the insured, in a suit against his insurer, is bound by findings adverse to him in prior litigation between the insured and a third person.The liability insurance policy involved covered certain vehicles of the railroad company but expressly excluded from coverage injuries to employees in the course of their employment. One Harrison, a regular railroad employee, was injured while riding in an insured vehicle with a fellow employee. He sued the railroad company under the Federal Employers Liability Act. Before he could recover …

Contracts-Measure Of Damages-Life Insurance Contract, Howard Van Antwerp

Michigan Law Review

When the plaintiff was expelled from defendant Brotherhood an insurance policy issued to the plaintiff by the defendant was canceled and the cash surrender value paid to him in accordance with the terms of his policy. The directors of the Brotherhood later decided that this expulsion had been wrongful, whereupon the plaintiff returned the cash surrender value of the policy and demanded the return of all premiums paid. When this demand was refused, the plaintiff sued to recover damages for wrongful cancellation of his policy. The trial court instructed the jury to return a verdict for the premiums paid with …

The Awarding Of Punitive Damages For Breach Of Insurance Contracts In South Carolina, Hugh C. Howser

South Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.