Massachusetts Developments

Subscribe to Massachusetts Developments via RSS

All eyes have been focused on the federal mid-term elections and the impact on the U.S. House and Senate. Post-mortems by the pundits have begun. See Locke Lord’s take on the mid-terms. The divided government in Washington, D.C. may well stymie efforts to regulate the insurance industry at the federal…

Three bills have recently been filed in the Massachusetts legislature that would require motor vehicle insurers to pay a minimum hourly labor rate when reimbursing repair shops in the State. Identical bills by Rep. Cabral (H494) and Sen. Welch (S599) would create this minimum rate by using the average rate…

A Massachusetts federal court recently denied a pre-award petition to remove a party-appointed arbitrator finding that the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) did not authorize the court to order arbitrator removal before a final arbitration award has been issued. The parties disputed whether the qualification requirements of the arbitration clause in…

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court recently rejected the application of the “Selective Tender Rule” as against Massachusetts law and public policy. On a certified question from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, the Court found that where two workers’ compensation insurance policies issued by different companies provide…

In Boyle v. Zurich American Insurance Company, 472 Mass. 649 (2015), decided on September 14, 2015, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (the “SJC”) indicated, to the dismay of the insurance defense bar, that the right to a defense under a liability insurance policy is not merely contractual, but rather…

In Preferred Mutual Insurance Company v. Vermont Mutual Insurance Company, 87 Mass App Ct. 510 (June 17, 2015), the Massachusetts Appeals Court discussed several interesting insurance coverage issues when it addressed a dispute between a homeowner’s insurer and a CGL insurer. The facts of the case were as follows.…

In a recent decision, a Massachusetts trial court addressed whether an insurer could recoup previously-paid indemnity and defense costs from its insured. Finding that the insured had not obtained the payments as a result of fraud or bad faith, and that the insurer had failed to cite policy language permitting…