In an unpublished October 5, 2015 opinion (here), the Eleventh Circuit, applying Florida law, held that a D&O insurance policy’s contractual liability exclusion precluded coverage for negligence claims asserted against persons insured under the policy. The contract exclusion was written with a broad “based upon, arising out of” preamble wording. As discussed below, the decision highlights concerns about the use of the broad preamble in D&O insurance policies’ contractual liability exclusion. An October 28, 2015 post on the Wiley Rein law firm’s Executive Summary Blog about the Eleventh Circuit’s ruling can be found here.
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D&O Insurance: Two Federal Appellate Courts Issue Rulings Confirming Carriers’ Coverage Denials
When I started out as a law firm associate doing D&O insurance coverage work more than three decades ago, there was virtually no interpretive case law available. Legal research in connection with D&O insurance tended to be a meagre, frustrating process. Things have changed so much in the interim that now we can have two appellate decisions from two different federal circuit courts on D&O insurance issues in just a single day. On October 21, 2015, both the Second and Fifth Circuits issued D&O insurance coverage rulings, in both cases finding that the there was no coverage under the D&O insurance policies involved for the matters in dispute.
The Second Circuit’s October 21, 2015 summary order in Nomura Holding America, Inc. v. Federal Insurance Company can be found here. The Fifth Circuit’s October 21, 2015 opinion in Martin Resource Management Corporation v. Axis Insurance Company can be found here. I discuss the two appellate decisions below.
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Defense Costs Paid Under Reservation of Rights Do Not Erode Fiduciary Liability Policy’s Limit of Liability?
As part of our beat here at the The D&O Diary, we read a lot of judicial opinions. We are quite accustomed to the fact that the case outcomes can be and often are all over the map. Just the same, every now and then we read a decision that really makes us scratch our heads. That was our reaction when we read Southern District of Mississippi Chief Judge Louis Guirola, Jr.’s October 2, 2015 opinion in the Singing River Health Systems case (here), in which Judge Guirola, applying Mississippi law, held that when a fiduciary liability insurer defends its insured under a reservation of rights, the defense expense payments do not erode the policy’s limits of liability. A number of questions and concerns may fairly be raised about this decision, as discussed below. The Traub Lieberman Insurance Law Blog has an October 5, 2015 post about Judge Guirola’s decision, here.
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D&O Insurance: HIPAA Supoenas, Interrelatedness, and Regulatory Claim Sublimits
In an interesting September 30, 2015 opinion, Southern District of California Cynthia Bashant, applying California law, held that a series of HIPAA-related subpoenas that the U.S. Department of Justice served on Millennium Laboratories were not interrelated with prior qui tam lawsuits that had been filed against the company, and held further that coverage under Millennium’s D&O insurance policy for the company’s costs of responding to the subpoenas was not limited by the policy’s $100,000 sublimit for Regulatory Claims. A copy of Judge Bashant’s opinion can be found here.
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D&O Insurance: Insured vs. Insured Exclusion Applies Even When Claimants Include Both Insureds and Non-Insureds?
The Insured vs. Insured Exclusion is a standard D&O insurance policy provision. The exclusion precludes coverage for clams brought by one “Insured Person” against another “Insured Person.” But what happens when the claimants suing an Insured Person include both individuals who are Insured Persons and other individuals who are not? In a September 22, 2015 opinion (here), District of Minnesota Chief Judge John Tunheim, applying Minnesota law, held that where the underlying claim involved a lawsuit by an Insured Person against other Insured Persons, the entire claim was precluded from coverage, even though the claimants in the lawsuit included other plaintiffs who were not Insured Persons.
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D&O Insurance: The Question of Coverage for TCPA Claims
The Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) has proven to be a fruitful source of consumer class action litigation. Plaintiffs’ lawyers are attracted by the potentially lucrative recoveries under the statue, and indeed several recent settlements in TCPA class action lawsuits have run into the millions of dollars. The volume of litigation under the statute and the potential damages associated with the claims has inevitably led to insurance coverage questions. In the past, defendants in TCPA lawsuits looked to their Commercial General Liability (CGL) policies for their defense of these kinds of claims. However, CGL carriers increasingly are expressly excluding coverage for TCPA lawsuits, which has led other companies seeking insurance for TCPA claims to look to other coverages for possible insurance protection, including their D&O insurance policies. As discussed below, carriers may contend that standard D&O insurance policy exclusions preclude coverage for these kinds of claims, but courts continue to sort out the issues.
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Ninth Circuit: Professional Services Exclusion Precludes Coverage Under Payroll Services Firm’s Management Liability Insurance Policy
The problems that can arise from the wording of the professional services exclusion in the D&O insurance policy of a service company are perennial issues and a recurring topic on this blog (see most recently here). In an unpublished August 18, 2015 opinion (here), the Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s conclusion that coverage for a claim under a payroll services firm’s management liability insurance policy was precluded by the policy’s professional services exclusion. While the preclusion of coverage under the professional services exclusion in services firms’ D&O policies often can be questionable, this instance seems like a situation where the exclusion was applicable. As discussed below, however, there are still some important lessons from this case.
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Cal. Supreme Court: Insurer May Seek to Recover Directly From Independent Counsel Allegedly Excessive or Unreasonable Fees
On August 10, 2015, in an opinion that has already garnered a great deal of attention and commentary, the California Supreme Court ruled that an insurer that funded the payment for its insured of independent counsel (or “Cumis” counsel as independent counsel are known in California) in defense of a claim may seek to recover directly from the independent counsel law firm amounts the insurer paid that the insurer contends were excessive or unreasonable. Though the ruling represents a landmark of sorts, the California Supreme Court’s opinion is much narrower than many commentators have acknowledged, which will limit its applicability in other cases. A copy of the California Supreme Court’s opinion can be found here.
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The Problem with a Broadly Worded Professional Service Exclusion in a Service Firm’s D&O Insurance Policy
In a recent post (here), I discussed a recent federal district court ruling in which the court broadly interpreted the professional services exclusion in a bank’s D&O insurance policy in order to preclude coverage under the policy for a claim that had been made against the bank and certain of its directors and officers in a case arising out of the long-running Rothstein Ponzi scheme scandal. Southern District of Florida Kathleen M. Williams’s May 2015 opinion in the case, which I discussed in that earlier post, can be found here. As I noted in my earlier post, the case presents an example of the problems that can arise when a professional services firm’s D&O insurance policy contains a professional services exclusion with the broad “arising out of, based upon, or attributable to” preamble language.
As discussed below, a recent law firm memo analyzing the court’s ruling called Judge Williams’s expansive reading of the language “troubling” and expressed the concern that the breadth of the court’s reading of the exclusion’s preclusive effect could render the D&O insurance policy’s coverage “largely illusory.”
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Guest Post: Maximizing the Return on Your D&O Insurance for Merger Objection Lawsuit
One of the most distinctive corporate and securities litigation phenomena over the last several years has been the rise in merger objection lawsuits. We are now to the point that virtually every M&A transaction attracts at least one lawsuit. These suits present a number of challenges, including, among other things, questions arising in connection with D&O insurance coverage for the companies and individuals named as defendants in the lawsuits, particularly with respect to the price change exclusion, sometimes referred to as the “bump up” exclusion.
In the following guest post, Peter M. Gillon and Alexander Hardiman of the Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP law firm take a look at the insurance coverage issues that frequently arise in these types of cases and offer some practical advice about the ways that insureds can maximize their insurance coverage when these claims arise, particularly in dealing with issues involving the bump up exclusion. Peter is a Partner and Alex is Counsel at the Pillsbury law firm. A version of this article was recently published as a Pillsbury client alert.
I would like to thank Peter and Alex for their willingness to publish their article as a guest post on this site. I welcome guest post submissions from responsible authors on topics of interest to this blog’s readers. Please contact me directly if you would like to submit a guest post. Here is Peter and Alex’s guest post.
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With the explosion of “merger objection” lawsuits being filed by the plaintiffs’ securities bar in the last decade, policyholders seeking coverage under their directors’ and officers’ (D&O) liability insurance for those suits have increasingly been bumping heads with their insurance carriers over the application of the “price change exclusion” (also referred to as the “bump-up” exclusion). This has been a major source of frustration for companies reasonably expecting their policies to respond fully to merger objection suits – especially shareholder suits claiming breach of fiduciary duties by the target company’s Board of Directors in approving the sale of the target. Many companies and their securities defense counsel have capitulated in the face of their carriers’ declinations of coverage. But, as this note explains, it is critical to consult with coverage counsel on these matters as insurers’ assertion of the price change exclusion is often misplaced.
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