On September 6, 2021, New York Governor Hochul announced that the New York Commissioner of Health had designated COVID-19 as a highly contagious communicable disease that presents a serious risk of harm to public health under the New York HERO Act (the “HERO Act”). This new designation requires all New York employers to implement workplace

Here is what we cover in this issue of The Title Reporter: A Legal Update for the Title Insurance Industry:

• An appellate court in California has ruled that the state’s Quiet Title Act insulated a third party from the effect of a subsequent invalidation of an earlier quiet title judgment only if the third

Whether a partnership, limited liability company, or corporation, it is imperative to know of a business’s legal duties when it is in possession of funds for uncashed distributions.

Under New York Abandoned Property Law, uncashed distributions become abandoned property after 3 years. See New York Abandoned Property Law § 501. New York businesses are not

Court Dismisses Claims Against Insurer For Bad Faith Failure To Settle, And For Consequential And Punitive Damages

Scottsdale issued a policy to Watershed Ventures, LLC, which included Directors and Officers Liability Coverage.  Scottsdale filed a declaratory judgment action seeking a declaration that Patrick McGrath was not covered under the policy for a claim against McGrath. 

Shari Lewis wrote the article, “Explosion of Ransomware Attacks Addressed by DFS,” for USLAW Magazine’s Fall 2021 issue.

First Step

Last Wednesday, the House Ways and Means Committee approved that portion of the 2022 budget legislation with which it was tasked by the Congressional Budget resolution of August 24. The text of the bill prepared by the Committee – almost nine hundred pages long – was passed along party lines, except for one

September.  Synonymous with back to school, the end of summer, and the start of the NFL season.  And while the Cowboys and Bucs kicked off the season this year, another epic battle was brewing out west in the corridors of the Ninth Circuit.

The public policy in most states is to enforce arbitration agreements in

Living the Dream

“How was your weekend?” Thank you for asking. Awful.[i]

“Why?” you ask. (Humor me. Pretend you’re interested.) I’ll tell you.

One word, with 535 syllables: Congress.[ii]

When the reconciliation budget resolutions were passed by the Senate and then the House,[iii] the committees to which reconciliation instructions were given were also directed “to

Summertime in Washington

On August 11, the Senate passed the $3.5 trillion budget resolution for the 2021-2022 fiscal year – S. Con. Res. 14, as amended – by a vote of 50 to 49, strictly along party lines, including Democratic Senators Manchin and Sinema who have repeatedly questioned the wisdom of such an expensive measure.

In March 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic was first beginning to take hold, the New York State Department of Financial Services (DFS) issued a report on insurance fraud that highlighted the fact that suspected no-fault automobile insurance fraud accounted for 59 percent of the 25,985 insurance fraud reports that the DFS’s Insurance Frauds Bureau received

On August 31, 2021, the FBI and CISA (Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency) issued Alert AA21-243A, warning that there is an increased risk to U.S. entities of an “impactful ransomware attack” over Labor Day Weekend. A summary of the risk and suggested steps to address it can be found at https://us-cert.cisa.gov/ncas/current-activity/2021/08/31/fbi-cisa-advisory-ransomware-awareness-holidays-and-weekends. The Alert can be

Court Declines To Rescind Policy Based On Issues Of Fact As To Materiality Of Alleged Misrepresentations

Union Mutual disclaimed coverage for a fire loss at its insured’s restaurant and sought to rescind its policy based upon the insured’s alleged misrepresentations in its application that it did not have “open flame cooking” or a Single Room

Report Card

A couple of weeks ago, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (“TIGTA”) released a report that presented the results of its review to determine whether the IRS’s “policies, procedures and, practices” adequately ensured that its examiners were considering the compensation paid by closely held S corporations to those shareholders who rendered service

Here is what you will find in our August Insurance Update:

• Pollution Exclusion Bars Coverage for Criminal Proceeding Over Submission of Fraudulent Coal-Dust Samples, Sixth Circuit Affirms
• Fifth Circuit Finds Insurer Has Duty to Defend Insured for a Data Breach Litigation Under Policy’s Personal and Advertising Coverage
• Warranty Exclusion Bars D&O Liability Coverage for

The New York Court of Appeals’ past term was as unusual a term as practitioners and judges ever could have imagined. Of course, COVID-19 continued to affect the Court’s operations. On top of that, the early retirement of Judge Paul Feinman, followed by his untimely death, the subsequent retirement of Judge Leslie Stein, and the