With a global economy more and more products are being shipped to the United States from foreign countries daily. When these products fail, it is expensive and time consuming to seek recovery from the foreign manufacturer. But before throwing out your products claim, look at your state’s laws on pursuing those entities in the chain...
A. What is A Standard Mortgage Clause? First-party property insurance policies usually contain one of two types of mortgagee clauses: i) a loss-payable clause; or ii) a standard mortgage clause. i) The Loss-Payable Clause: This type of clause merely provides that insurance proceeds shall be paid to a mortgagee as "its interests may appear."...
While plastics have forever changed the way we live, the story isn’t always as rosy as the American Chemistry Council infers in the quoted slogan. Introduced in 1956, acetal (also known as polyacetal, polyformadehyde or polyoxymethlene) was developed for high stiffness, low friction and stability. This material was successfully used in the manufacture of automotive...
In Georgia, it is well known that actions for injury to real and personal property caused by any person furnishing the design or construction of an improvement to the property must be filed within eight (8) years after the substantial completion of the improvement. O.C.G.A. §9-3-51(a). Further, an improvement to real property has been defined...
As was previously reported, New York Governor Paterson has signed a bill which purports to eliminate the alleged windfall of double recoveries to plaintiffs which were alleged to have resulted from the common-law Collateral Source Rule, which enabled collateral source payors, including subrogating insurers, to recover their losses as part of the damages claimed by...
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court Civil Procedural Rules Committee developed Recommendation 240 which would have amended Pa.R.C.P. 1020 to require that all claims arising from the same property loss be bought in a single action, even where there are different claimants with distinct damages. This proposal would have overturned settled Pennsylvania appellate precedent. Subrogation attorneys from...
Where the subrogating insurer and insured both have recovery claims and are competing for a limited amount of available money from a defendant, issues arise as to who is entitled to recovery, and/or how the recovery should be divided. These issues fall within the realm of the “made whole rule”, which generally provides, that under certain...
A Louisiana federal court issued a decision this week that may affect thousands of claims in the ongoing Hurricane Katrina litigation. After a 19 day bench trial for five flood victims that filed suit against the United States Army Corps of Engineers (ACOE), U.S. District Judge Stanwood R. Duvall awarded $719,000 in the In Re...
New York Governor Paterson signed into law New York State Bill A40002, which amends CPLR 4545, New York’s Collateral Source Rule. The bill has many aspects, some of which relate to municipal health benefit plans which are not directly germane to subrogation concerns. From a subrogation perspective, the bill both maintains existing restrictive language concerning...
The Economic Loss Doctrine may bar tort claims when a defective product causes injury only to the product itself and not to other property or persons. In many jurisdictions there are exceptions to the doctrine, including when the damage is caused by a “sudden calamitous event.”Recently, the Supreme Court of Tennessee considered the application of...