The Title Reporter — Spring 2022

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

• A federal district court in Montana has ruled that a conveyance of property by policyholders under a title insurance policy to trusts was a voluntary conveyance to “a separate and distinct entity” and that, as a result, the title insurance policy lapsed.
• A federal district court in California has denied an insured’s motion to add a bad faith claim to the lawsuit it filed against its title insurer for breach of contract and negligence.
• An appellate court in Texas, reversing a trial court’s decision, has ruled that a Texas trial court had personal jurisdiction over two individual defendants in a lawsuit involving a title insurer that was filed in the Texas trial court.
• The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, reversing a decision by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida, has ruled that a county ordinance triggered an easement’s abandonment clause.
• The Appellate Division, Second Department, has reversed a New York trial court’s decision and ruled that the plaintiff did not have an easement by implication over certain property owned by the defendant.

Michael J. Heller, Peter P. McNamara, and Matthew V. Spero