A commentary on insurance coverage issues in Hawaii and beyond
After carefully dissecting the earth movement exclusion, the court denied the insurer's motion for summary judgment. High Street Lofts Condominium Assoc., Inc. v. Am. Family Mut. Ins. Co., 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 109043 (D. Colo. Sept. 26, 2011).
The City of Boulder performed road repair work near High Street's property, some of…
The interpretation of the additional insured endorsement was key to determining coverage in Lancaster v. Ferrell Paving, Inc., 2011 Tenn. App. LEXIS 507 (Tenn. Ct. App. Sept. 20, 2011).
Ferrell Paving, Inc. used a warehouse to store its construction materials. Ferrell employed Imperial Guard Service, Inc. to provide security services for the…
The Commissioner of the Hawaii Insurance Division, Gordon Ito, met with the HSBA Insurance Coverage Litigation section last week. The Commissioner gave an overview of the Insurance Division and its inner workings.
Here's a summary of the Commissioner's presentation.
The Insurance Division consists of various branches. The Division has 81 positions authorized, 70…
In our 500th post, we review a case in which time on the risk was found to be the proper allocation method for ongoing property damage. Bradford Oil Co., Inc. v. Stonington Ins. Co., 2011 Vt. LEXIS 102 (Vt. Sept. 11, 2011).
Bradford Oil Company owned a Mobil station. Contamination was discovered at the…
In Wilson v. AIG, 89 Haw. 45, 968 P.2d 647 (1998), the Hawaii Supreme Court held that an insured was not the real party in interest when challenging its auto insurer's refusal to pay benefits to the insured's medical provider. Relying on legislation post-dating its prior decision, the Court overruled Wilson in an unanimous decision authored by Justice…
The pollution exclusion barred coverage for alleged property damage and bodily injury in Evanston Ins. Co. v. Harbor Walk Dev., LLC, No. 2:10cv312 (E.D. Va. Sept. 9, 2011) [Evanston Decision here].
Homeowners sued the insured, Harbor Walk, in three lawsuits, alleging the Chinese drywall installed in their homes emitted sulfides…
Congratulations to another Damon Key blogger, David McCauley, for rolling out his new immigration blog. Today's post addresses the U.S. State Department's Diversity Visa Lottery. Many more informative, timely posts to come from this blog, we are sure.
The insured, Georgia-Pacific, sued USF&G for failing to defend in three underlying lawsuits. Georgia-Pacific LLC v. United Stated Fidelity & Guar. Co., 2011 U.S. App. LEXIS 18014 (11th Cir. Aug. 29, 2011). The district court granted USF&G's motion for summary judgment because the policy's Self-Funded Retention Endorsement had not been satisfied.
The…
Gordon Ito, Commissioner of the Hawaii Insurance Division, will be the guest speaker at the Hawaii State Bar Association's Insurance Coverage Litigation Section's meeting on Friday, October 7, 2011.The meeting will be from 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m. at the offices of Cades Schutte, 1000 Bishop Street, 10th Floor. Please feel free to join us.
After suffering hurricane damage and having repairs made, the insured sought to assign rights under its policy to the contractor performing the remediation work. The anti-assignment provision, however, prevented the contractor's recovery under the policy. Paramount Disaster Recovery, Inc. v. Axis Surplus Ins. Co., 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 98272 (S.D. Texas. Aug. 31…
