Jury Trials in the Age of COVID. An Insider’s View of What Courts Will Look Like.
Subject to approval from the City of Philadelphia – the Court is a tenant of the City in Philadelphia City Hall — civil jury trials are set to resume in Philadelphia this week. On Friday, as a defense lawyer representative, I had the chance to attend a walkthrough hosted by Presiding Civil Judge Anders and get a sense of what the physical setup will be. Here is a quick overview and...Read More 0
Homeowners Policy Fails to Cover Crowded Concert Assault (PA)
The United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania recently determined that an insurer did not owe defense or indemnification to a homeowner who allegedly punched another person while attending a concert. In State Farm Fire and Casualty Company v Simone, the insurance company filed a declaratory judgment action against its insured and moved for judgment on the...Read More 0
Grandma’s Love Recognized As Immediate (NY)
The New York Court of Appeals recently ruled in favor of expanding the definition of “immediate family” under the New York Zone of Danger theory of recovery to include grandparents. The certified question was whether the Appellate Division properly held a grandchild was excluded from the class of persons constituting a grandparent’s “immediate family”, and the Court answered it in the...Read More 0
Include It or Lose It: Insurance Policies v. Reservation of Rights and the Recovery of Defense Costs (NY)
Insurance policies act as binding contracts setting the scope of coverage and exclusions as the insurer sees fit, pursuant to the laws of the state. A recent court decision in New York has established that insurance policies must be confined to the four corners of its content. The recent Second Department decision in American W. Home Ins. Co. v Gjonaj Realty & Mgt. Co. held that upon...Read More 0
Baseball Player Used Eye As Catcher’s Mitt, Assumed The Risk (NY)
In Grady v Chenango Valley Central School District, Plaintiff, then a high school senior and member of the Chenango Valley High School boys’ varsity baseball team, sustained permanent injuries to his right eye after being struck in the head by a baseball during a combined varsity and junior varsity outdoor baseball practice. Plaintiff commenced this action alleging that his injuries were...Read More 0
Suffolk County (NY) Operating Protocols – Effective February 22, 2021
As COVID-19 numbers seem to be at least be trending in the right direction, NY courts are preparing to resume in-person proceedings. (For the time being, remote appearances will remain the norm, but it makes sense to be prepared for in-person litigation.) Suffolk County has issued new protocols, which you can review here. Effective February 22, 2021, the new protocols include the...Read More 0
Wait Too Long, and Exclusions May Disappear (NY)
In the recently decided case of City of New York v. Philadelphia Indemnity Insurance Company, the Southern District of New York held that dragging your feet on correcting errors, in a disclaimer, could bar insurers from relying on exclusions as a bar to coverage. In brief, the City sought coverage from its insurer, Philadelphia Indemnity, for an underlying case regarding general welfare and...Read More 0
NJ Supreme Court Holds that NJ Transit is held to Heightened Duty of Care to its Passengers
On February 17, 2021, the New Jersey Supreme Court in Maison v. New Jersey Transit Corporation held that NJ Transit, which is a public common carrier of passengers, is held to the same heightened duty of care regulating private carriers. By way of background, the case involved a young woman whose forehead was severely injured after teenage passengers threw a bottle at her face. The teenagers...Read More 0