September 24, 2008 by Zale.

No.  Surprised?  Heard otherwise?  Most states look at the comparative fault of the parties when considering who should pay for an accident.  NORMALLY, when one car rear ends another, the one in the rear is at fault.  However, there are instances where the vehicle that gets rear ended is the one at fault.

Don’t believe me. Well, here’s a recent case from another state that illustrates this point.  Believe it or not, there are folks out there that try to cause this type of accident just to get paid.  Unfortunately, some insurance companies believe that that is every claim they get, which that is simply not the case.  Now, I’m not saying that this is the case in this recent case, but it does appear that the jurors, at least, liked the defendant more than the plaintiff.

Posted in Litigation, Injury Law | No Comments »

September 24, 2008 by Zale.

Generally a slip and fall in Tennessee is a losing battle.  Why?  Comparative Fault or, simply stated, “watch where you are going”.

Here’s a recent TN case where the plaintiff (the injured one) was going into a bank, while it was icy outside.  It appears that the drive through windows was open at the time, but he parked, got out of his car and fell on the ice.  I suspect that the plaintiff was advancing a theory that the bank should have put out more salt or had all the ice cleared.  Well, maybe yes, but no state has ever held that a property owner has the duty to hold back nature.  Which is exactly what that theory often amounts to.  More importantly, the plaintiff recognized the danger, which was “open and obvious”, and decided to take his chances anyway.

This case tells us that “open and obvious” dangers are still a viable defense in Tennessee.  If we did not have drive through windows, ATMs and online banking, the plaintiff might have had a better shot, but as it is, he really did not have much of a reason to get out of his car, or  even leave his house.

Gotta go, I need to log on and check my bank balances….

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September 24, 2008 by Zale.

I noticed this recent TN bad faith case.  In short, this is one of those cases where the insured’s property burns down and the insurance company insuring the property calls the fire arson, which is not covered.

Let’s set the stage.  If you have a claim like this, one of the first people out there, other than the property adjuster, is the C & O or Cause and Origin expert.  They are there to try to figure out why this piece building, all of a sudden, decided to increase it’s output of carbon and, consequently, lower its roof line to the ground.  The adjuster is going to have the insured fill out proof of loss statements and that sort of thing.  If the insurance company suspects that the policy holder or insured intentionally set the fire, then the  insured can expect to have to sit for an Examination Under Oath, which is often followed by a denial of coverage.

Well, in this case, the jury found that they believed that the insured had made some misrepresentations as to what they had.  This happens all the time, but the stuff that was misrepresented was no where to be found in the debris. So, the court said “no coverge for you!”

What do we learn from this? Just be honest.  At the end of the day, its only money.  Is your integrity really worth trying to inflate a claim?

Posted in Litigation, Insurance Practices, Insurance Law, Business Law | No Comments »