Insurance Bytes
Insurance Coverage for Employee Direct Action Asbestos Claims
- Illinois and Pennsylvania permit former employees to bring direct tort actions against former employers for asbestos and other occupational disease
- Insurers are likely to deny coverage for these claims due to time limits (EL) or the employee exclusion (GL)
- GL and EL policy language needs to be closely scrutinized and umbrella coverage considered Read Article Here
Fed App. 7th Circuit / Attorneys’ Fees:
In Starstone Ins. SE v. City of Chicago, the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit found the insurer had to pay $3.75M in attorneys’ fees that were part of an $18.75M civil rights settlement paid by the City of Chicago. Read more »
South Carolina App / Long-Tail Asbestos Insurance:
The South Carolina Court of Appeals issued notable rulings on missing policies, allocation, operations versus completed operations, and occurrences in a case involving asbestos bodily injury claims against a commercial insulation contractor. Read more »
U.S. Sup. Ct. / Asbestos Bankruptcy:
The U.S. Supreme Court held that an insurer with financial responsibility has standing to object to the Kaiser Gypsum Chapter 11 reorganization plan, identifying the "insurance neutrality doctrine" as conceptually wrong. Read more »
CA Sup. Ct. / Asbestos Allocation
The California Supreme Court unanimously held that “vertical exhaustion” applies in the continuous injury context under standard CGL policy language, rejecting horizontal exhaustion requirements for accessing excess policies. Read more »
IL 1st Dist. / Duty to Defend
The Appellate Court of Illinois held that State Auto had no duty to defend Distinctive Foods, concluding that extraneous evidence need not be considered and that a punitive damages prayer mentioning gross negligence was insufficient to trigger a duty. Read more »
7th Circuit / BIPA Insurance
The Seventh Circuit affirmed that an "Access or Disclosure" exclusion in a primary policy precluded coverage for BIPA violations, while finding other exclusions in an umbrella policy did not eliminate the duty to defend. Read more »
BIPA INSURANCE ALERT
An overview of the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA), which presents substantial potential liability for companies collecting biometric data, and the insurance implications of its draconian damages. Read more »
IL App. 1st / BIPA
The Illinois Appellate Court held that a "violation-of-law" exclusion's catch-all provision barred coverage for a BIPA claim, and that estoppel did not apply where there was no duty to defend. Read more »
WV Sup. Ct. / Pollution
The West Virginia Supreme Court concluded that the continuous trigger theory applies to determine when bodily injury occurs under an occurrence-based CGL policy for long-tail claims involving latent injury. Read more »
IL Sup. Ct. / Construction
The Illinois Supreme Court issued a landmark decision holding that property damage resulting from inadvertent faulty workmanship can be an "accident" and thus an "occurrence" under a CGL policy. Read more »