Judges who have spent significant time at sea are few and far between. Nonetheless, they set high standards for seafarers and the carriers who employ them. Because of these high standards, judges do not allow carriers to avoid liability for…
Almost a year ago we reported on the California Supreme Court's substantial expansion of jurisdiction over claims by non-resident plaintiffs against non-resident defendants ("Back to the Future for California Jurisprudence"). Yesterday, in good news for defendants and their insurers, the…
Oregon employers are facing new obligations and areas of potentially significant liability with Governor Kate Brown's June 1, 2017, enactment of the Oregon Equal Pay Act of 2017 (Oregon Equal Pay Act of 2017 (HB 2005)). Though the title of…
In response to Golden Oldies (Pacific Maritime Magazine, March 2017), a reader asked how admiralty lawyers find old cases. She imagined law clerks digging through dusty books. That was the old method. With the computer age came the digitization of…
The Washington Supreme Court significantly limited the applicability of an absolute pollution exclusion by application of the efficient proximate cause rule, which had not previously been applied to third-party coverage disputes. Moreover, the Court held as a matter of law…
On April 20, 2017, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued another in a string of recent decisions from the appellate court that rejected insurers' coverage defenses based on the contractual known loss provision. In Alkemade v…
Most non-maritime lawyers like to direct the court's attention to the most recent case on a point of law. Most maritime lawyers like to take a different approach. They prefer to direct the court's attention to old cases establishing a…
As we've discussed in recent advisories, the California Supreme Court has been moving towards more pro-plaintiff and pro-policyholder positions in its recent decisions. This week, the Court took another step in that direction, reversing lower courts' rejection of the Insurance Commissioner's…
On March 1, the standard for awarding attorney's fees in civil actions under Idaho Code § 12-121 will change significantly to allow attorney's fees in all civil actions "when justice so requires." The language of section 12-121 itself will not…
I have been lucky in my career to have represented vessel owner clients whose masters have acted in a non-negligent manner when commanding their vessels. Other lawyers have not been so lucky, as thousands of cases demonstrate. It may seem…