February 15, 2022
For more than 50 years, insurers have known that their duty to defend a Texas policyholder from a lawsuit must be decided based only on the language of the insurance contract and the allegations made by the plaintiff. The so-called …
December 7, 2021
A Dallas gold coins dealer cannot evade a fraudulent check exclusion in its insurance policy by putting the onus on UPS for rerouting shipments worth more than $1 million. The Texas Supreme Court ruled that UPS’ alleged mishandling of its …
August 5, 2021
A federal appellate court ruled Wednesday that the Texas Workers’ Compensation Division may not enforce a law that regulates fees charged by air ambulance companies that transport injured workers from accident scenes. The panel decision by the 5th Circuit Court …
June 2, 2021
The Texas Supreme Court ruled that a defendant in a personal-injury suit has a right to review documents regarding medical providers’ negotiated rates and costs even though the providers were not parties to the suit. The high court on Friday …
May 25, 2021
A policyholder may file a lawsuit seeking a declaratory judgment to recover from their auto insurer if their damages exceed the amount paid by the tortfeasor’s insurance carrier, a divided Texas Supreme Court ruled. The 5-4 ruling requires Allstate Insurance …
April 20, 2021
A lawsuit that charges staffers at a Texas psychiatric hospital with violating a patient’s civil rights must comply with a state law that requires plaintiffs to submit expert reports after filing health care liability claims, even though no medical malpractice …
April 13, 2021
The Texas Supreme Court on Friday reversed lower court rulings and found that Farmers Insurance was within its rights when it decided 19 years ago not to renew homeowners’ policies that it feared would have forced it to cover mold …
July 22, 2020
Texas law requires an insurer to defend the grandparents of a 10-year-old boy who was killed while driving their all-terrain vehicle against a negligence lawsuit, even though the carrier says neither the boy nor the crash was covered by its …
July 23, 2019
Insurance companies should take note of a recent ruling by the Supreme Court of Texas that closes a “trapdoor” pretrial discovery gambit by plaintiffs’ lawyers that exposed defendants to sanctions for denying negligence in pretrial requests for admissions and then …
April 18, 2017
In an effort to clear up confusion as a result of past decisions, the Texas Supreme Court announced five rules that “address the relationship between contract claims under an insurance policy and tort claims under the Insurance Code.” The clarification …