The Oregon Supreme Court, affirming a lower court’s decision, has ruled that an insurer had a duty to defend an additional insured against a complaint that contained allegations that, reasonably interpreted, could result in the insured being held liable for damages covered by the policy.

The Case

West Hills Development Company was the general contractor

An appellate court in California, affirming a trial court’s decision, has ruled that an insurer had no duty to indemnify its insured, a licensed general contractor, in a construction defect case where the contractor’s action that led to the defect had been deliberate.

The Case

D.B.O. Development No. 28 entered into a construction contract with

An appellate court in California has affirmed a trial court’s decision that a general contractor was not an additional insured on a subcontractor’s excess insurance policy.

The Case

Advent, Inc., was hired as the general contractor for the Aspen Family Village project in Milpitas, California. Advent subcontracted with Pacific Structures, Inc. In turn, Pacific subcontracted

An appellate court in Ohio, applying the “triggering event” theory, has ruled that each individual claimant’s exposure to asbestos was an “occurrence” for purposes of insurance policies issued to a valve manufacturing company.

The Case

Some of the valves manufactured by the William Powell Company before 1987 contained asbestos. In 2001, Powell began receiving personal

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, in a case involving asbestos liabilities, has affirmed a Michigan district court’s decision that pro rata allocation was the appropriate method to use to allocate damages and costs under an insured’s policies and has affirmed the district court’s decision requiring the insured to pay approximately $2.4

New York Governor, Andrew Cuomo, has signed a new legislation that may pave the way for outpatient clinics and diagnostic and treatment centers, which includes ambulatory surgery centers (“ASCs”), to provide primary care services to their patients off-site under limited circumstances. The new law, codified in the Public Health Law § 2803(11), requires that the

The Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Inspector General (“OIG”) has released its Work Plan for Fiscal Year 2017 (the “Plan”). The Plan, available through the OIG website, summarizes new and ongoing audits, investigations and evaluations that OIG will prioritize in the upcoming year. Some of the new initiatives that OIG intends to

In December 2016, the Office of Inspector General (“OIG”) for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services amended existing safe harbors and issued a number of new safe harbors to   protect certain business practices and arrangements of doctors, hospitals, and pharmacies from sanctions under the anti-kickback statute (42 U.S.C. § 1320a-7b(b)). Additionally, OIG amended

Since its enactment six years ago, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (the ACA) has faced numerous challenges from Republicans attempting to repeal the law. Though previous efforts, through both legislation and litigation, have been unsuccessful, the election of Donald Trump and a Republican-controlled Congress likely portends at least a partial repeal of the

Florida Court Upholds Denial of Long-Term Disability Benefits to Employee Who Worked Fewer Hours 

The plaintiff in this case was a financial sales professional with AXA Equitable Insurance Company who said that he experienced neck and back pains stemming from motor vehicle and snowboarding injuries that he had suffered in 2003. The plaintiff regularly worked 70 to

Employers regularly collect and maintain confidential personal information about their employees, including birth dates, social security numbers, addresses, tax information, and bank information.  A data breach may put this employee information at risk.  In two recent decisions, courts have had to consider the scope of employers’ duties to their employees to protect confidential personal information

In September 2016, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced a new regulation that would require banks and insurers to implement cyber security programs. Specifically, the proposed regulation required covered entities, defined as any entity operating under a license or other authorization required by New York’s banking, insurance or financial services law, to establish and maintain

Insurance fraud has been estimated by some to be as large as an $80-billion-per-year problem. See, e.g., Coalition Against Insurance Fraud, “By the numbers: fraud statistics.”1 To fight insurance fraud, insurance companies, working hand-in-hand with their lawyers, have begun to adopt new kinds of technology. These tools—ranging from social media to data analytics—are being used

Sagging Roof Was Not A Collapse, Court Confirms

The owner of a building in the Bronx sought coverage under its property policy for a damaged roof, claiming it “collapsed,” a covered cause of loss under the policy.  The court granted the insurer’s motion for summary judgment, finding that “no part of the premises fell to

Implied-in-Fact CBA Excluded Time Spent Donning and Doffing Work Clothing from Compensable Time, Eighth Circuit Decides

Since at least 1967, hourly employees working at the battery manufacturing facility in Joplin, Missouri, operated by EaglePicher Technologies, LLC, were represented by a union, presently known as the United Steel, Paper and Forestry, Rubber, Manufacturing, Energy, Allied Industrial