When Driving Through Somebody’s Living Room Is Not Negligence Every day in America vehicles leave the roadway, travel across well-manicured lawns, smash through garden sheds, patio furniture, swing sets, and plow through the walls of a home, coming to rest…
Complex litigation and subrogation cases involving product liability and/or technical issues frequently require opinion testimony in the form of expert witnesses. The role of the expert is to educate lay judges and juries who lack knowledge about a particular issue…
Approximately 12% to 14% of all accidents result in a total loss, a number which has been trending upward since 2002. Insurance companies faced with first-party claims on policies are responsible for paying the actual cash value or market value…
When dealing with photographs taken of other people, prudence requires that we consider the legal rights of the subject and the ethics of publishing the photo without their permission. Since the advent of digital photography, photographs have played a big…
Imagine opening the door to your condominium (“condo”) only to be confronted by several inches of standing water. The first call is to your insurance company, which must then consider not only mitigating, adjusting, and paying the claim, but subrogating…
Montana businesses are learning the hard way the cost of electing a Democrat governor. The Montana legislature represents a solid, common sense, Republican majority which understands the vital role that a business-friendly environment plays in stimulating the real job creators…
Tort and subrogation cases continue to be heavily mined and booby-trapped with potential spoliation danger. However, the law in this area is far from clear. In the case of Brookshire Brothers v. Aldridge, 438 S.W.3d 9 (Tex. 2014), Jerry Aldridge…
The claims history of most domestic insurance carriers is littered with billion dollar claims as a result of catastrophic losses caused by natural disasters. When God sends a hurricane, tornado, flood, or naturally-occurring fire, the resulting losses can be enough…
What if the deck was stacked in such a way that insureds and tortfeasors could gerrymander and structure a tort settlement so as to ensure that the insured would never be “made whole”? Surely such ability would be a legal…
One of the recurring questions Matthiesen, Wickert & Lehrer, S.C. (MWL) is called on to answer involves when and under what circumstances the insured suffering automobile property damage, or his or her subrogated automobile insurer, may recover for diminution in…