Between the Lines

Holding:  Insurer’s Good Faith Settlement After Filing Notice Of Appeal Is Not A Defense to Policyholder’s Liability For Retrospective Premium.  Under a typical general liability policy the insurer has a…

The Court Also Confirms That Massachusetts Applies A Per Se Rule That A Reservation of Rights Creates A Conflict Entitling A Policyholder To Independent Counsel.  A dispute concerning liability insurance…

  Workers’ compensation is the exclusive remedy for an employee against her employer for a workplace injury.  However, as a Massachusetts Superior Court judge recently concluded, the fact that a…

In Liberty Mutual Fire Insurance Company v. Casey, 2017 WL 1186467 (Mass. App. Ct. 2017), Casey, Williams, and others, teenagers, smoke marijuana and consumed alcohol at a fiesta, then left…

Interpreting the duty to defend broadly, a Massachusetts superior court case addresses when an additional insured is entitled to a defense – a frequently-occurring but always confusing scenario. Much hinged…

In 1990, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court held that a demand letter from the EPA to a potentially responsible party (PRP) under CERCLA is the functional equivalent of a suit…

AIG unsuccessfully sought to disengage itself from Bill Cosby by seeking a declaration that it had no duty to defend or indemnify Cosby in three underlying suits. The decision is…

“Love thy neighbor” was obviously not the principle governing the behavior of the Kaplans and the Costellos, neighbors in Hull, Massachusetts. When the Kaplans sued, the Costellos’ counterclaimed alleging an…

When an insurer wrongfully refuses to defend, it largely gives up the right to contest the reasonableness of the insureds’ legal fees. So ruled a federal district court in Wisconsin,…

Surprisingly, the answer is “no,” at least from the Supreme Court of Ohio. When a landlord was sued by an African American woman who claimed she was discriminated against in…