Blood is thicker Derrick Martins Oliveira filed suit against Commerce Insurance Company to obtain coverage as a “household member” under an automobile policy held by the mother and stepfather of his long-term partner, with whom he had a child. Since 2012 Oliveira had lived with his partner in a single-family unit with her mother and stepfather. On July 18, 2014, Oliveira was seriously injured in a single-automobile accident while a
Court Decisions
Two wrongs don’t make a right In February 2009, an employee of The Art of Design mailed a box that contained 10 bottles of a chemical product known as Medium Reducer AMR-2712 (“the Reducer”) to an individual in Florida. The Reducer contained toxic chemicals such as toluene. During the shipping process the box was passed through a conveyor system known as a secondary induction-singulator at a U.S. Postal Service processing
If limits are exhausted, must insurer still defend? A 16-vehicle traffic accident occurred on July 20, 2011. A chain reaction was precipitated when an employee of Joginder Singh, driving Singh’s semitruck, approached congested traffic ahead of him in the right lane without slowing down. He swerved into the adjacent lane and collided with a logging truck owned by Gilliardi Logging and Construction Inc. The momentum of the collision caused the
One fire or many? On May 16, 2013, a fire broke out on forest land owned by Lyme St. Croix Forest Company. Known as the Germann Road Fire, it burned 7,442 acres over the course of three days. Real and personal property that belonged to many individuals and businesses sustained damage. The fire allegedly began in the cutting head of a piece of logging equipment known as a feller buncher,
Life’s not always a box of chocolates Rainforest Chocolate, LLC, was insured under a businessowners policy issued by Sentinel Insurance Company. In May 2016, a Rainforest employee received an email purporting to be from his manager. The email directed the employee to electronically transfer $19,875 to a specified outside bank account. Unbeknownst to the employee, an unknown individual had gained control of the manager’s email account and sent the email.
