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July 29, 2026
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — A North Carolina judge held that commercial general liability insurers have no duty to compensate Harris Teeter Supermarkets Inc. and Harris Teeter LLC for their alleged share of liability under a global settlement agreement resolving hundreds of lawsuits seeking damages allegedly caused by the distribution and dispensing of opioid drugs by The Kroger Co. and its affiliates and subsidiaries, concluding that Harris Teeter is not “legally obligated to pay” any of the damages under the settlement and, therefore, no coverage is owed.
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July 29, 2026
SEATTLE — An insurer filed suit in a Washington federal court, seeking a declaration that it has no duty to defend or indemnify its insured against an underlying negligence and wrongful death lawsuit arising from the implosion of the commercial submersible Titan on June 18, 2023, that killed five people.
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July 29, 2026
ST. LOUIS — A Missouri appeals court affirmed a lower court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of insurers in a coverage lawsuit brought by a trust that was created in a bankruptcy proceeding for the benefit of individuals harmed by major producers of opioid pharmaceutical products, agreeing with the lower court that the products-completed operations hazard (PCOH) exclusion barred coverage.
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July 28, 2026
FLINT, Mich. — Exercising its right to retain jurisdiction, a federal judge in Michigan refused to dismiss insurers’ lawsuit seeking a declaratory judgment that they have no duty to defend or indemnify their insured and its employees against an underlying negligence lawsuit arising from the death of a minor who was receiving hyperbaric oxygen therapy at the insured’s facility.
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July 28, 2026
SAN FRANCISCO —An insured may state viable declaratory relief claims under excess liability insurance policies even if all of the underlying coverage has not yet been exhausted, the California Supreme Court held on July 27, reversing an appellate court’s ruling in favor of two excess insurers in a private equity management firm insured’s declaratory relief and bad faith lawsuit and remanding the professional liability coverage dispute to the appellate court.
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July 28, 2026
CHICAGO — The Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals refused to reconsider its ruling affirming a lower federal court’s denial of a plaintiff’s request for class certification in his lawsuit seeking to hold an insurer liable under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) and reversing the court’s summary judgment ruling in favor of the plaintiff after holding that he failed to demonstrate that the insurer is vicariously liable for a telemarketer’s calls.
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July 28, 2026
CHICAGO — An airline and its excess insurer filed two separate complaints in an Illinois federal court within one day of each other, arguing over excess cyber liability coverage for the July 2024 CrowdStrike outage that the insured argued forced it to cancel more than 1,600 flights and inflicted tens of millions of dollars in business interruption losses.
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July 24, 2026
PHILADELPHIA — Answering a certified question from the Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court held that neither an insurer’s duty to defend nor its duty to indemnify is abrogated on the basis of public policy when the insured is purported to have enabled or profited from sex trafficking.
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July 24, 2026
SALT LAKE CITY — The 10th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed a lower federal court’s summary judgment ruling in favor of a professional liability insurer on the remaining bad faith claim in a coverage dispute over a medical malpractice action arising from a surgical liposuction procedure that resulted in a patient’s death, finding that the clinic insured and its assignee have failed to identify evidence demonstrating that the insurer acted in bad faith.
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July 21, 2026
LOS ANGELES — A California appellate panel on July 20 affirmed a lower court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of an insurer in an insured’s breach of contract and breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing lawsuit seeking coverage for theft by conversion of three African art pieces, agreeing with the lower court that the insured’s refusal to submit to an examination under oath as required by the personal articles insurance policy doomed his lawsuit.
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July 21, 2026
RICHMOND, Va. — The Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on July 20 remanded for the district court to consider a commercial general liability insurer’s argument that its declaratory relief action was rendered moot by the settlement of an underlying lawsuit alleging that a nightclub insured misappropriated professional models’ likenesses and injured their professional reputations by posting their images online without their consent, noting that the question of mootness was raised by the insurer for the first time on appeal.
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July 21, 2026
RICHMOND, Va. — The Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals rejected two separate insureds’ motions for relief from a lower federal court’s final judgments against them in their coronavirus coverage disputes, rejecting their arguments that the North Carolina Supreme Court’s pro-coverage decision in North State Deli v. Cincinnati Ins. Co. should prompt the lower court to reopen and revise its prior judgments.
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July 21, 2026
GREENSBORO, N.C. — A professional liability insurer filed suit in a North Carolina federal court, seeking a declaration that it has no duty to defend or indemnify a law firm insured and its attorney against underlying allegations that they misappropriated client funds.
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July 20, 2026
INDIANAPOLIS — An Indiana appeals panel reversed a lower court’s grant of a commercial general liability insurer and claims administrator’s motion for judgment on the pleadings in a coverage dispute arising from an alleged injury at the insured’s 4-H Fair, concluding that it cannot determine on the pleadings that the defendants have no duty to defend or indemnify.
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July 20, 2026
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Answering a certified question from an appeals court, the Florida Supreme Court determined that the appeals court erred in its interpretation of Florida Statutes Section 768.72(1) when it refused to allow petitioners to amend their counterclaims to seek punitive damages against a neighbor, his insurer and the insurer’s counsel in a lawsuit arising from “hate mail” letters.
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July 17, 2026
NEW ORLEANS — A group of domestic insurers filed the third petition for a writ of certiorari seeking review of a Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruling affirming the denial of a motion to compel arbitration of a dispute over damage from a Louisiana hurricane under a state law barring arbitration of such disputes, asking the court to find that the Fifth Circuit applied the wrong law to their equitable estoppel argument under the Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards (the New York Convention).
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July 17, 2026
TAMPA, Fla. — A federal judge in Florida denied a liquor liability insurer’s motion for summary judgment as to its duty to defend its insured against an underlying negligent security lawsuit arising from an altercation at the insured’s establishment, holding that a “fair reading” of the underlying complaint would lead to the conclusion that the alleged attack occurred because of the purported assailant’s intoxication and that alcohol was furnished to him at the insured’s bar.
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July 16, 2026
TRENTON, N.J. — A New Jersey appeals panel on July 15 affirmed a lower court’s ruling that a commercial building owner was an additional insured under an insurance policy that was issued to the lessee of the building and that the insurer had a duty to defend and indemnify the building owner against underlying claims arising from an elevator shaft injury, rejecting the insurer’s argument that the policy’s workers’ compensation and employers’ liability exclusions barred coverage.
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July 16, 2026
NEW YORK — A federal judge in New York denied a motion by Justin Baldoni, a movie studio and its officers to dismiss or stay their management liability insurer’s lawsuit seeking a declaration that it has no duty to provide coverage for a sexual harassment, hostile work environment and retaliation lawsuit that was brought by Blake Lively, rejecting the insureds’ argument that it is “sufficiently more efficient” for the insurer to join a related lawsuit they filed in a California state court against three of their other insurers.
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July 15, 2026
BALTIMORE — A federal judge in Maryland closed directors and officers liability insurers’ lawsuit seeking a declaration that they owe no coverage to Under Armour Inc. for underlying investigations by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.S. Department of Justice, shareholder demand letters and a securities class action after the Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals concluded that the insured’s public financial forecasts and accounting practices are a single claim not subject to the additional $90 million in coverage under the 2017–2018 insurance policies.
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July 14, 2026
CHICAGO — A Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed a lower court’s ruling that an insurer had no duty to defend or indemnify a roofing contractor in an underlying suit alleging that the contractor’s negligent repair work contributed to the collapse of a building’s façade, killing two people.
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July 13, 2026
NEW YORK — A federal magistrate judge in New York granted motions by plaintiffs in a multidistrict litigation that arose out of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and spanned more than 20 years to enforce default judgments against Iran by pursuing execution and attachment of two digital wallets that contained approximately $344 million of Tether cryptocurrency tokens that were allegedly owned by the Central Bank of Iran.
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July 06, 2026
LAS VEGAS — A commercial crime insurer filed suit in a Nevada federal court seeking a declaratory judgment that it has no duty to indemnify an insured for its alleged $106,184,673 loss arising from a commission scheme by two of its former directors and officers involving the sale of COVID-19 test kits, further asserting that it may rescind the insurance policy based on the insured’s misrepresentation of a material fact regarding its knowledge of the scheme in the policy application.
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July 02, 2026
CINCINNATI — The Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on July 1 affirmed a lower federal court’s ruling in favor of The J.M. Smucker Co. in its breach of contract and declaratory judgment lawsuit seeking coverage for bodily injuries resulting from the alleged bacterial contamination of Smucker’s Jif-brand peanut butter, holding that the alleged salmonella outbreak is the lone occurrence and the policy’s Lot Endorsement does not convert one occurrence into many.
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July 01, 2026
NEWARK, N.J. — One day after the parties announced that they have reached a settlement in principle, a federal judge in New Jersey administratively closed insureds’ breach of contract and declaratory judgment lawsuit seeking directors and officers liability coverage for an underlying action alleging they owe $435,378.93 under a credit card processing services agreement.