Publications

In this Alert, we discuss a recent ruling by the Delaware Supreme Court relating to the “number of occurrences” under an excess liability policy. We also report on a game-changing procedural development in the Comer climate change lawsuit which had been slated for rehearing by an en banc panel of the Fifth Circuit. This Alert also summarizes a Third Circuit ruling that overrules previous precedent relating to the definition of a “claim” in the bankruptcy context. Other decisions of interest highlighted in this report include a California Supreme Court decision relating to the interplay between an intentional acts exclusion and a separation-of-insureds provision in a liability policy; a Virginia district court ruling applying a pollution exclusion and other policy exclusions to bar coverage for Chinese drywall-related claims; the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation’s refusal to transfer Chinese drywall insurance coverage disputes to multidistrict litigation where the underlying cases were pending; two reinsurance decisions, one issued by the Third Circuit and the other by a New York state court, relating to application of the “follow the settlements” doctrine; a Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling that an excess insurer’s duty to defend is not conditioned upon exhaustion of policy limits; and a New York federal court decision regarding a party’s forfeiture of its right to dispute attorneys’ fees pursuant to the “account stated” doctrine.