Noted insurance defense lawyer Randy Maniloff (and occasional slabbed contributor) has analyzed several insurance cases Judge Sotomayor has opined upon and found some things he liked from his perspective as an insurance defense lawyer. Sotomayor “brings a long record of decisions favoring insurers”. The Insurance Journal filed the report:
The Supreme Court almost never takes up insurance related cases. Even so, President Obama’s recent nominee brings a long record of decisions favoring insurers, a possible plus for the insurance industry, said Philadelphia based insurance attorney Randy J. Maniloff.
Maniloff, who is a partner in the commercial litigation department of White and Williams LLP, said that in his review of Sonia Sotomayor’s insurance-related opinions, he discovered that she ruled “consistently, across the board in favor of insurers.”
Maniloff, who concentrates his practice in the representation of insurers, said that while he set out to review Sotomayor’s insurance decisions mostly for “fun,” he was surprised by what he found. He reviewed many insurance-related cases by Sotomayor and found that the overwhelming majority of the cases resulted in opinions considered to be favorable to insurers.
Given her lengthy time on the bench, including on the District Court and Court of Appeals, Sotomayor has a long list of insurance coverage cases on her resume, Maniloff explained. “But what I discovered in the course of looking at Judge Sotomayor’s overall body of opinions on coverage issues was far more interesting than any one case. Judge Sotomayor has been very, very insurer-friendly during her time on the bench.”
Our readers can find Randy’s full article via his firm’s newsletter, Binding Authority.
sop
Insurance Law Hawaii has a post on Sotomayor decisions that includes this one on a NFIP case.
Palmieri v. Allstate Ins. Co., 445 F.3d 179 (2nd Cir. 2006) – The district court found the insured was entitled to the depreciation value of his dwelling under a flood policy, but was not entitled to the depreciation value of his personal property. The Second Circuit, in a decision by Judge Sotomayor, affirmed. Further, prejudgment interest could not be awarded against Allstate, who was acting as an agent of the federal government in administering the policy pursuant to the National Flood Insurance Act. Result: Mixed decision, granting relief to both Insured and Insurer.
I don’t know Nowdy, I have visions of Ginger Berrigan dancing in my head…..never met a murderer or insurance company they failed to like.
sop
You still have “visions” ?
IMO It’s been nothing but one nightmare after another since the administration showed its stripes on adding wind coverage to flood.
I wasn’t offering the case reference as a favorable comment – or any comment for that matter, just adding to the list.
This woman is a clear and present danger to the Constitution and laws of the United States and to individual liberty. I urge the owners of this web-Site to post the dissent in the celebrated Ricci case, in which this woman and two of her brothers and Sisters on the “lifetime appointment” Federal Bench violated their oath of office and obligation to the litigants in order “to put a round peg into a square hole”, thereby engaging in “judicial activism” in defiance of the law, and in order to achieve a certain “social justice” result. This woman is no “moderate”; she is a radical. Gingrich is a wimp for taking back calling her a racist. She IS a racist, and much worse, and it’s high time people start talking about it. If she’s confirmed, she’s “ours” for the next 30 years or so.
Well, this post is getting a bit “stale” already, but I am very fearful of this “poster-child” for affirmative action and self-admitted “affirmative action baby”. As if that would not be enough for Republicans with any backbone to oppose her (or just not vote “for” her), her position on the Second Amendment constitutes a clear and present danger to individual liberty. CRUSH this nomination by Barak Hussein Obama!