Insurance Coverage Blog

I've said it was coming Monday, and when I make a promise, I aim to keep it.  Even though as I write it is once again into the wee hours, due to day job responsibilities.  Good Lord, I miss seeing my family. 

Here is a copy of the article as it appeared recently. 

Some malfunction of the Dunn Carney servers, as of the moment I write this, has lost me my connection to Microsoft Outlook.  Therefore, I cannot retrieve right now from my friends at LexisNexis the exact language of the copyright notice I was supposed to include with this reprint.  Nor can I access the other articles that appear in the current edition of the quarterly publication New Appleman on Insurance: Critical Issues in Insurance Law, which I said I would talk about. 

So I will wing, for the time being, the copyright notice:

Copyright © Matthew Bender & Company, Inc., a member of the LexisNexis Group. Republished with permission from New Appleman on Insurance: Current Critical Issues in Insurance Law. All rights reserved. 

I think that's it, it's the one I've used before.  I'll fix the rest when my e-mail access is restored.  Again, thanks to the good people at LexisNexis, who have always treated me well, for whom I have high regard, and who know how close to my heart are these anti-concurrent articles over which I have struggled and suffered. Incidentally, are there any others out there like me, who like to use the who/whom distinction whenever possible?  I remember working hard in grade school to master this, and no matter that "whom" has passed into obscurity, I'm not letting all that effort go for naught.

UPDATE:  On Friday, Judge L.T. Senter Jr. gave a further opinion in the Dickinson v. Nationwide case I mentioned earlier, the one in which he endorsed the anti-concurrent cause methodology and analysis I have explained in these articles.  The new opinion is a denial of Nationwide's motion for reconsideration and denial of its motion for an interlocutory appeal to the Fifth Circuit.  For non-lawyers, interlocutory means before the case is done.  Another very clear and precise ruling from Judge Senter.  His focus on what the "loss" is under the policy is exactly right, and in reading this opinion and comparing it to other court opinions on anti-concurrent cause, you can see how this methodology cleans up the analysis and gives it direction. I hope all courts will eventually adopt this way of analyzing anti-concurrent cause. Here's a copy of the opinion.  

In the bio that accompanies your wonderfully-done article, I don't see anything that refers to your status as an alien from a far-away planet, the one where each day consists of 72 hours rather than 24, every second of which you appear to use writing concise, easy-to-follow legal prose that keeps those of us who were lucky enough to stumble onto your blog informed and surprisingly, well, Entertained. Thanks... again.

Is my memory correct that the California cases that spawned the anti concurrent causation clause (notice I didn't say ACC)were the earthquake claims, where the court found that even though the damages were caused by earthquake, they weren't excluded because they were/could have been caused by 3rd party negligence, and that wasn't excluded?

My memory of the Garvey case was an "All Risk" policy that excluded earth movement(earthquake coverage was available from the private insurance market under an earthquake policy). The Garvey's had a room addition to their home by a contractor who also pushed some dirt around to build the room addition on. The earth moved due to a wild night by the Garvey's and the room addition had new openings not planned for. The court determinded coverage because there was no 3rd party negigence excluded under the policy. They concluded this because of the Partridge case where coverage was found under the homeowner's policy because a typical California insured driving around in his car with a gun that went off due to someone filling down the trigger(3rd party negigence).