- Liability exposures are a major roadblock to reopening. Over to you, state and federal lawmakers [Jim Copland, City Journal] “Can reopened businesses use waivers to fight coronavirus lawsuits? Probably not” [Daniel Fisher, Legal Newsline]
- The structural reasons America is so good at turning out cans of soda and so awful at turning out COVID-19 tests [Paul Romer] Links we haven’t rounded up previously on the testing debacle: Alec Stapp, The Dispatch; Michael D. Shear, Abby Goodnough, Sheila Kaplan, Sheri Fink, Katie Thomas and Noah Weiland, New York Times; Shawn Boburg, Robert O’Harrow Jr., Neena Satija and Amy Goldstein, Washington Post; Jeffrey Singer; Caroline Chen, Marshall Allen and Lexi Churchill, ProPublica; Paul Detrick, Jacob Sullum; earlier here, etc.;
- Loosening a 1967 federal law so as to ease intrastate sales of meat between ranchers and local grocers could help both consumers and embattled livestock raisers while better respecting the Constitution’s scheme of federal authority [Baylen Linnekin; related here from 2010 on the tendency of food regulation to be pushed by a combination of consumer/safety groups and large producers, for whom the regulation often serves to improve their position as against smaller market players]
- “Even though the state government asked thousands of people to come to New York from out of state to help fight coronavirus, they will have to pay New York state taxes, even on income they might make from their home states that they’re paid while in New York.” [Corey Crockett and James Ford, WPIX]
- Forced retroactive coverage of business interruption risks never underwritten or paid for “could bankrupt the insurance industry,” per one defense lawyer [Alison Frankel, earlier here and here; Nancy Adams and Kaitlyn Leonard, WLF]
- Bilingual national identity is not a suicide pact: “Canada recently relaxed bilingual labeling requirements for some cleaning products coming from the United States.” [Inu Manak]
Posts Tagged ‘insurance’
Environment roundup
- “Ninth Circuit Dismisses Kids Climate Case for Lack of Standing” [Jonathan Adler, more; John Schwartz, New York Times; earlier here, here]
- Administration finishes replacing much-criticized Obama rule on Waters of the United States (WOTUS) [AgInfoNet, WilmerHale, earlier]
- Prop 65 mini-roundup: the California chemical-disclosure regime “has not been shown to provide benefits that justify its high cost.” [Michael Marlow, Cato Regulation magazine last summer] It has also created a $300 million/year industry that includes not a few shakedown artists [Cameron English, ACSH] Take two Tylenol and label them as hazardous chemicals or else [Masha Abarinova, Reason] Gas utility’s Prop 65 insert warning of exposure to, yes, natural gas [SoCalGas] From Cal Biz Lit, lists of 2019 settlements and consent judgments;
- Forcing insurers to renew risky policies: “California Politicians Double Down on Encouraging People To Live in Wildfire-Prone Areas” [Christian Britschgi]
- Exchange on the Price-Anderson Act and the liability regime it creates for nuclear power generation [John Cochrane; Tyler Cowen, Marginal Revolution] “Germany’s closing of nuclear power stations after Fukushima cost billions of dollars and killed thousands of people due to more air pollution.” [Alex Tabarrok]
- Two Cato Daily Podcast episodes hosted by Caleb Brown: why scaling back National Environmental Policy Act review of infrastructure projects “won’t have much of an impact on environmental quality.” [Peter Van Doren] Should Presidents wield unilateral power to lock or unlock use of federal land, as is conferred on them under the 1906 Antiquities Act? [Cato Daily Podcast with Caleb Brown and Jonathan Wood]
Expensive windshields in Florida
Florida’s overdue insurance-law reform on the “assignment of benefits” issue had a carve-out excluding auto claims, and Sunshine State lawyers continue to ride auto-glass cases for automatic fee entitlements. A report from the Florida Justice Reform Institute “shows nearly all auto glass lawsuits come from just 15 law firms — one firm, Malik Law, accounts for nearly 30 percent of all such lawsuits filed this year. Additionally, the vast majority of auto glass lawsuits are in Hillsborough and Orange counties. FJRI speculates that’s due to higher attorney fee awards in those counties.” [Drew Wilson, Florida Politics, earlier]
Energy and climate roundup
- “The Supreme Court Should End Pipeline Companies ‘Build First, Pay Later’ Use Of Eminent Domain” [Andrew Wimer, Institute for Justice/Forbes, Robert Thomas, Inverse Condemnation on cert petition in Like v. Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line] Plus: Federalist Society teleforum on pipeline eminent domain battles with Robert J. McNamara of IJ and Peter Tolsdorf of NAM;
- New nuclear format: “Enough communities in Utah and elsewhere have agreed to purchase nuclear power from a small modular reactor planned at the Idaho National Laboratory, triggering a next phase in its development.” [Amy Joi O’Donoghue, Deseret News, Idaho National Lab/Energy Department, Adrian Cho/Science Mag]
- “National manufacturers group warns Florida a ‘climate litigation’ target” [John Haughey, Center Square]
- “Transportation Department Proposes New Criminal Thresholds For Anti-Pipeline Protests” [Western Wire, earlier here, here, here, etc.]
- The better to pressure you, my dear: groups demand that California insurers disclose fossil fuel insureds [Insurance Journal]
- “New Orleans coastal lawsuit will kill jobs, critics say” [Bethany Blankley, Center Square Louisiana, earlier]
Florida assignment of benefits reform heads to governor
The Florida legislature has passed, and Gov. Ron De Santis indicates he will sign, a bill reforming the operation of the policyholder feature known as assignment of benefits (AOB), widely criticized for encouraging inflated claims and tactical filings meant to obtain lawyers’ fees. [Amy O’Connor, Insurance Journal] In anticipation of likely savings, state-owned insurer of last resort Citizens Property Insurance Corp. has scaled back a 25 percent requested rate increase to 10 percent. [The Insurer] Earlier on assignment of benefits here and here.
January 30 roundup
- “Battle over stolen diamond-studded golden eagle takes flight as insurer fights order to pay up” [Jason Proctor, CBC]
- Fentanyl test strips save lives. Feds oppose their distribution [Jeffrey Singer, Cato]
- D.C. Circuit judicial nominee Neomi Rao (full disclosure: an old friend) “comes under fire for undergraduate writings on sexual assault — though her views from 25 years ago are consistent with today’s statutes and rulings.” [K.C. Johnson, City Journal]
- One reason the costs of rent control policies get understated: it’s hard to control and account for declines in the quality of apartment services [Richard McKenzie and Dwight Lee, Cato Regulation magazine]
- Federalist Society National Lawyers Convention video panel on antitrust law transparency with Deb Garza, Hon. Frank Easterbrook (“Always remember that sunlight is full of ultraviolet radiation”), Eric Grannon (incentive problems of “amnesty plus” program; “moral turpitude” provisions, more on which), moderated by Hon. John Nalbandian;
- Big reason military and health care procurement is so pricey: “scads of less specific programs out there [are] insanely cheaper and more functional, but those programs cannot justify the costs of becoming compliant” [from Tyler Cowen comments]
Liability roundup
- Legislative relief finally in sight in Florida’s assignment of benefits mess? [Michael Moline, Florida Politics, Insurance Journal on this Insurance Information Institute white paper, Jim Saunders, News Service of Florida and more, Rocco English, Florida Daily, earlier]
- Update on 2018 developments in civil justice [Mark Behrens and Christopher Appel, Federalist Society] “Costs and Compensation of the U.S. Tort System” for 2016 [U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform]
- In first case to reach trial blaming Monster energy drink for heart attack, jury deliberates 15 minutes and reaches defense verdict [Jessi Devenyns, FoodDive]
- Contributing to judges’ election funds taints a verdict? Can both sides play? [Jim Beck, ADA Journal on State Farm Illinois settlement]
- “The Rise of the Freedom To Arbitrate” [John McGinnis, Law and Liberty] “Trial Lawyers Find Unusual Allies In Fight Against Arbitration: Conservative State Treasurers” [Daniel Fisher, Legal NewsLine/Forbes]
- Accessibility complainant who turned out to be ambulatory without wheelchair drops two lawsuits after Post exposé [Julia Marsh, New York Post]
New York: maybe gun insurance is okay after all
As our friend R.J. Lehmann observed the other day: “New York now wants to require people to hold a kind of insurance that it sanctioned the NRA and an insurance broker earlier this year for selling at all.” I explain in my new Cato post.
Lawyers milk Florida accident-bill law for one-way fee entitlements
A Florida law allows persons who have undergone treatment after auto mishaps to sign over to the medical provider their right to sue their insurer under so-called PIP (personal injury protection) auto coverage. Under the provisions of this assignment of benefits (AOB) law, when the medical provider sues, it is entitled to one-way attorney’s fees (payable if it prevails, but not if it loses). These attorneys’ fees can dwarf the underlying sums being sued over — amounting to about $40,000 following a $790 win in one extreme case.
Now Florida attorneys are rolling out tens of thousands of AOB suits, many of small enough quantum that they can be filed in small claims court, even if the fee entitlement thereby triggered is not so small. In Volusia County, where small claims filings more than doubled to over 12,000 cases in 2017, “a single local law firm accounted for all of that increase — and then some — by filing 8,400 cases that year…. In one example, Advantacare of Florida, represented by Kimberly Simoes, filed a lawsuit against State Farm saying the company had not paid it for services it rendered to Stephen Smith. Advantacare was awarded $789.62 according to court files. Simoes was awarded $39,985 in attorney’s fees. Attorney Mark Cederberg was awarded $3,500 for his expert testimony regarding whether Simoes’ fees were reasonable. About a month after the attorney’s fees were awarded, Advantacare dismissed the lawsuit.” [Frank Fernandez, Daytona Beach News-Journal; earlier here and here]
As I have written elsewhere, the true two-way loser-pays systems that operate in most other legal systems take care to avoid the fee-escalation incentives that typify many one-way fee entitlement laws in the U.S. In particular, they tend to hold fee recoveries below actual outlays, and often decline to reimburse fees unnecessarily expended.
Banking and finance roundup
- High cross-border remittance costs for globally mobile workers slow ascent from poverty, and know-your-customer and money-laundering regulations have made things worse [Money and Banking]
- “The Supreme Court should find ALJs to be ‘officers of the United States’ and thus make them subject to presidential appointment and removal.” [Ilya Shapiro on Cato merits amicus filing in Lucia v. Securities and Exchange Commission]
- “Settlement of Lawyer-Driven ‘Merger Tax’ Litigation Stumbles in New York” [Greg Herbers, WLF]
- “Financial Regulation: The Apotheosis of the Administrative State?” 2017 National Lawyers Convention Federalist Society panel with Richard Epstein, Hal Scott, Peter Wallison, and Arthur Wilmarth, moderated by Judge Carlos Bea;
- With advances in Oregon and even California, deregulation of commercial insurance lines is having a moment [Ray Lehmann, Insurance Journal; Lehmann’s 2017 Insurance Regulation Report Card for R Street Institute] Perennially troubled Massachusetts, on the other hand, continues slide in same survey [Agency Checklists]
- Tech companies have been experimenting with old and lawful device of dual class stock and SEC shouldn’t be allowed to use raised eyebrow power to stop that [Bainbridge, WLF]