Insurer Intentionally Avoiding $200M Loan Claim, Court Told

By Hope Patti

A litigation funding firm has accused its insurer of wrongfully refusing to pay out its policy's guaranteed $200 million in coverage for an unpaid loan, saying the insurer buried it in duplicative and burdensome information requests to avoid paying a valid claim.

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School Shooting Claims Belong In Arbitration, Lloyd's Says

By Joyce Hanson

Lloyd's of London underwriters have asked a federal judge to order the School Board of Broward County, Florida, to arbitrate its claims for coverage of settlements due to a high school shooting that resulted in the murders of 17 people in 2018 on Valentine's Day.

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Justices Won't Review Doctor's Captive Insurance Tax Fight

By Asha Glover

The U.S. Supreme Court won't review the Internal Revenue Service's rejection of a Texas doctor's claim to $1 million in tax deductions linked to his urgent care network's captive insurance company, the court said Monday.

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Excess Insurer Says Healthcare Co. Can't Tap $25M Policy

By Mark Payne

A private equity-backed hospital management company can't tap into its $25 million excess professional liability insurance for several underlying lawsuits until it forks over its $5 million self-insured retention payment, National Fire & Marine Insurance told a Tennessee federal court.

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Insurer Rips Hyundai's Early Exit Bid In Theft Bellwether Trial

By Linda Chiem

State Automobile Mutual Insurance Co. has told a California federal judge that a jury must hear all its claims in a bellwether trial next month as it seeks to hold Hyundai Motor America liable for allegedly selling theft-prone vehicles that heightened the risk of insurance claims.

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Home Insurer Says Rival Used Failed Deal To Steal Business

By Hope Patti

A home insurer has told a Texas Business Court that a rival company used its confidential and trade secret information obtained during failed acquisition talks to undercut its prices and solicit top agents to move books of policies to the competitor.

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Wash. Justices Won't Be Asked About Reed Hein Insurer Fight

By Rachel Riley

A Washington federal judge on Monday denied two consumers' bid to certify insurance coverage questions to the Evergreen State's highest court in a lawsuit accusing insurers of failing to defend a now-defunct timeshare exit company from an unfair business practices class action that resulted in a $630 million deal. 

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Insurer Lessons From 1st Wave Of GenAI Coverage Rulings

Several pending cases target the issue of whether generative AI may appropriately replace human professional decision-making, and though each case is still in discovery, the decisions thus far provide insurers with guidance on how courts may view these claims, say attorneys at Simpson Thacher.

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Black McDermott Atty Says White Men Favored For Partner

By Lauren Berg

A Black female McDermott Will & Schulte attorney accused the firm of gender, race and pregnancy discrimination in a lawsuit lodged in California state court, saying she has been consistently bypassed for promotion by less-experienced white attorneys and was yanked off casework after taking medical leave following a life-threatening illness during pregnancy.

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'Kind Of Lawyering We Don't Like': Judge Rips Quinn Emanuel

By Bonnie Eslinger

Guardant Health Inc. urged a California federal judge on Monday to make Quinn Emanuel pay nearly $1.3 million on top of $3 million in sanctions already imposed over misrepresentations lawyers made representing its rival Natera Inc., prompting the judge to criticize Quinn Emanuel lawyers for making distinctions so fine they veer into misrepresentation.

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Q&A

She Has A Point: Fish & Richardson's Nitika Gupta Fiorella

By Dani Kass

Fish & Richardson PC principal Nitika Gupta Fiorella is "a no-stone-unturned, always super prepared" lawyer who "epitomizes professionalism and respect," according to Finnegan Henderson Farabow Garrett & Dunner LLP partner Cora Holt.

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Fox Lawyer In Dominion Case Confirmed To Texas Bench

By Courtney Bublé

The Senate voted 47-46 Monday evening to confirm Andrew Davis, a partner at Lehotsky Keller Cohn LLP who defended Fox News in the Dominion Voting Systems defamation case, to serve on the bench in the Western District of Texas.

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Justices Won't Consider IP Theft Allegations Against Akin

By Dani Kass

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected a former Cornell University graduate student's petition trying to revive his malpractice suit against Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP stemming from patent litigation against Illumina Inc. over DNA sequencing intellectual property.

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DC Ethics Office Says Ex-Interim US Atty Can't Remove Case

By Emily Sawicki

Washington, D.C., ethics officials have asked a federal court to send U.S. Department of Justice official Ed Martin's ethics case back to the D.C. Board on Professional Responsibility, arguing the D.C. federal court lacks jurisdiction over a disciplinary matter, which is neither a civil action nor a criminal prosecution.

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Ex-Newman Clerks, Judges Back High Court Suspension Fight

By Adam Lidgett

A group of former clerks for Federal Circuit Judge Pauline Newman, as well as former federal judges, have urged the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the challenge to her suspension imposed by her colleagues.

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Judge Says Ill. Justices Can't Fire Him Over MAGA Op-Ed

By Jack Karp

Illinois Supreme Court justices have no authority to remove a state judge from the bench for alleged misconduct, so their effort to dismiss a retired state trial judge's claims that his removal for penning a political opinion column violated his constitutional rights should be rejected, the retired jurist has said.

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Catching Up With Delaware's Chancery Court

By Jarek Rutz

The Delaware Chancery Court this past week delivered another mix of procedural rulings, fiduciary duty disputes and deal litigation, highlighting both the court's gatekeeping role and its continued focus on stockholder rights and transactional fairness.

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