Directors' & Officers' Liability Archives | The Insurance Recovery Journal

Category Archives: Directors’ & Officers’ Liability

Insurance Policies Aren’t “Ordinary” Contracts and Courts Should Remember That

March 10, 2017

There’s no disputing which party has all the muscle in the insurer-insured relationship. That’s why special rules apply to policy interpretation: to level the field of play. When courts fail even to mention those rules, much less to apply them, it leads to uncertainty, instability, and unfairness. Even when a court reaches the right conclusion, it’s important that it do so for the right reasons. Read More

New Jersey’s Late-Notice “Gotcha” (Revisited)

December 12, 2016

In reviewing the most important insurance decisions of 2016, I was reminded of an especially troubling opinion by the New Jersey Supreme Court earlier this year. It was a bad memory that reignited a need to comment on it. The Appellate Division decision in that case, Templo Fuente De Vida Corp. v. National Union Fire Insurance Co., was the subject of a blog post I wrote in June 2014 that concluded with the following prediction: “It is hard to imagine, in light of New Jersey jurisprudence on the notice issue, that the Supreme Court would affirm the nullification of coverage on account of an immaterial breach of the amorphous ‘as soon as practicable’ provision in a claims-made policy.” That prediction could hardly have been more wrong.