As this column regularly observes, insurance companies frequently use civil litigation as a tool to fight insurance fraud,1 including fraud involving life insurance policies.2 Insurance fraud, of course, also is a crime,3 and prosecutors often bring criminal actions against those who commit insurance fraud.

Generally speaking, a person convicted of insurance fraud faces a potential

Divorced Wife Was Not an “Eligible Spouse” Entitled to Survivor Benefits under Ex-Husband’s Pension Plan, Eleventh Circuit Rules

The plaintiff’s husband was a participant in the El Paso Corporation Pension Plan, under which he received retirement benefits beginning in 1987. The plaintiff and her husband divorced in 2011, and he died about eight months later.

After

More than 30 years ago, in 1984, a divided New York Court of Appeals decided in Barker v. Kallash that a person who committed an illegal act of a serious nature should not be able to profit from that wrongdoing.1 By 1997, the court, in Manning v. Brown, seemed to have no doubt about this

Oral Complaints to Employer Alleging FLSA Violations Could Serve as Basis for Retaliation Claim, Court Rules

For more than 15 years, the plaintiff in this case worked as a truck driver for William C. Wernicki Trucking Co., a Connecticut company owned by Ena Wernicki that provides mail-hauling services pursuant to several contracts with the U.S.

The Court of Appeals issued seven principal insurance law decisions this past term.1 Four decisions affirmed the rulings below, two reversed, and one modified. Five were in favor of insurance companies and two in favor of policyholders. Two of the seven were unanimous, one was decided by a vote of four-to-one, and four had at

New York’s Top Court Rules That Computer Fraud Coverage Applies To Unauthorized “Hacking,” But Not To Authorized Users Who Supplied Fraudulent Data

The New York Court of Appeals, New York’s highest court, has ruled that an insurance agreement that provided coverage for “a fraudulent entry of Electronic Data or Computer Program” into the insured’s computer

U.S. Supreme Court Says that Fiduciary’s Duty of Prudence Involved Continuing Obligation to Monitor Investments and Remove Imprudent Ones

In 2007, several individual beneficiaries of the Edison International 401(k) Savings Plan, a defined-contribution plan, filed a lawsuit on behalf of the plan and all similarly situated beneficiaries against Edison International and others. The plaintiffs sought to

With the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), the primary federal chemical safety law, approaching its 40thyear, all of its constituents (industry, consumers and regulators) are in agreement that it needs to be modernized, albeit with some disagreement as to the particular contours of such reform.

Present Legislative Status

Earlier attempts at TSCA reform having failed

A decision issued by the New York Court of Appeals early in June extends application of the court-created “preclusion” rule in no-fault insurance cases, which provides that an insurer’s failure to timely pay or deny a claim results in an insurer being precluded from interposing a defense against payment of the claim, except where the

Court Dismisses Wage-and-Hour Claims against Wal-Mart

The plaintiff in this putative class action alleged that, during the time she had been employed by Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., as a pharmacist, she took the home study and test portions of the APHA Immunization Certification Training Course. The plaintiff contended that the training course was “directly related” to