On September 17, 2014, Michael H. Passman presented on "Reservation of Rights and Estoppel" at "Handling Insurance Coverage Disputes," an Illinois insurance law conference in Bloomington, Illinois organized by the Illinois Institute of Continuing Legal Education. Michael's presentation included a discussion of (1) the options available to an insurer upon receiving a potentially covered claim, (2) reservation of rights letters, (3) how a reservation of rights letter effects the relationship between the insurer and the insured (including a discussion of the independent counsel rule), and (4) the Illinois estoppel rule.

Maria G. Enriquez will be attending the Women's Business Development Center's 28th Annual Entrepreneurial Woman's Conference in Chicago on September 17, 2014. The Women's Business Development Center focuses on meeting the needs of women and minority business owners in the Midwest. The conference offers women the opportunity to build relationships with potential clients, business experts, and other women business owners. For more information, please click here. On-site registration is available beginning at 7:30 a.m. at McCormick Place-West, 2301 S. Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, IL.

A new Illinois appellate decision clarified 35 years of confusing precedent, and shed light on a challenging coverage question: When an exonerated prisoner sues a public entity for malicious prosecution, is the public entity's insurance triggered in the year in which the wrongful evidence or coerced confessions were first fabricated, or is insurance triggered in the year when the exoneration occurs and the tort of malicious prosecution ripens? This coverage debate may be of growing significance, given that criminal exonerations seem to be increasing across the country.

BatesCarey LLP is pleased to announce that Robert J. Bates, Jr. and Scott L. Carey were selected by their peers for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America® 2015. Selection to Best Lawyers® is based on an exhaustive peer-review survey of over 52,000 attorneys who vote for the leading attorneys in their practice area. Corporate Counsel magazine has called Best Lawyers® "the most respected referral list of attorneys in practice."

Cory M. Figiel will be leading a panel discussion on the duties of insurers, entitled, "Young Lawyer Track: Duty – Or No Duty?" The panel discussion is hosted by the ABA on March 5, 2015 in Tucson, Arizona. The discussion will be led by Cory M. Figiel of BatesCarey LLP, Bridget Schuster of Williams Kastner & Gibbs, and Isaac Ruiz and Kathryn Knudsen of Keller Rohrback for the ABA Section of Litigation 2015 Insurance Coverage Litigation CLE Seminar.

Maria G. Enriquez will be a panelist on the upcoming webinar, "Bullying by and of Lawyers: Why It Happens and What to Do About It?" The webinar takes place on Tuesday, September 16, 2014, from 1 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. EDT. The expert panel will explain why bulling is a persistent problem in the bar and on the bench, examining its effects on victims and perpetrators. The panel includes practitioners, a psychologist with expertise in lawyer behavior, a judge who has developed judicial professionalism programs, and a former state bar president. Maria G. Enriquez will be joined by panelists Hon. Michael P. Donnelly (Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas), Peter Graham, PhD (Acumen Assessments), and Julie I. Fershtman (Foster, Swift, Collins & Smith).

Please register here. The event code is CE1409BUL.

PLEASE JOIN US FOR A PANEL DISCUSSION
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BatesCarey LLP invites you to a panel discussion on "Enforcing 'Foreign' Arbitration Clauses and Responding to Jurisdictional Challenges in U.S. Courts," hosted by the XL Bermuda Claims Department. The discussion will be led by Ommid C. Farashahi and Jason P. Minkin of BatesCarey LLP and Joshua S. Force of Sher Garner Cahill Klein & Hilbert, L.L.C.

There have been several recent noteworthy decisions from courts examining insurance coverage for, and liability issues impacting, architects, engineers and other design professionals. These cases have dealt with, among other things:

• the scope and application of the "professional services" exclusion in commercial general liability policies;
• the duty of care owed to future homeowners;
• criminal liability for circumventing state and local codes;
• application of the "first cost" doctrine for calculating damages;
• the "completed and accepted doctrine;" and
• allocation between covered and non-covered claims.

We provide brief summaries of these cases below.

On July 15, 2014, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals tagged an excess insurer with responsibility for paying $8 million in underlying defense costs after the primary insurer was determined to have wrongfully refused to take on the duty to defend. IMG Worldwide, Inc., et al. v. Westchester Fire Ins. Co., Nos. 13-3832, 13-3837, 2014 WL 3409044 (6th Cir. Jul. 15, 2014). The ruling serves as a cautionary warning to excess insurers that they may not sit idly by, comforted by the notion that they are insulated under a follow-form policy from owing a defense obligation merely because the underlying primary insurer has denied coverage.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit affirmed a trial court's dismissal of a lawsuit against our client, an insurer that issued an umbrella liability policy covering a municipality and its detectives, alleging bad faith and failure to settle. Kevin Fox v. American Alternative Insurance Corporation, Case No. 13-1290 (7th Cir.). Certain detectives assigned their...