RWU Law looks forward to the next installment of the Integrating Doctrine & Diversity Speaker Series:
HOW DOES DIVERSITY, EQUITY, INCLUSION AND BELONGING PEDAGOGY FIT IN BUSINESS ISSUES AND FINANCIAL AFFAIRS CLASSES? LEADING WITH DEIB IN WILLS, TRUSTS, ESTATES, INSURANCE, CONTRACTS, AND TAXATION LAW CLASSES
Wednesday, October 4 | 2:00 – 3:00 PM EST
Zoom Webinar Registration here.
Details about the Featured Speakers & Program here.
Professor Timothy D. Lytton, Associate Dean for Research and Faculty Development at Georgia State Univeristy, recently published his new article, Using Insurance to Regulate Food Safety: Field Notes from the Fresh Produce Sector, in the New Mexico Law Review. Here's the abstract:
Foodborne illness is a public health problem of pandemic proportions. In the United States alone, contaminated food sickens an estimated 48 million consumers annually, causing 128,000 hospitalizations and 3,000 deaths. Nowhere is this crisis more acute than in the fresh produce sector, where microbial contamination in growing fields and packing houses has been responsible for many of the nation’s largest and deadliest outbreaks. This Article examines emerging efforts by private insurance companies to regulate food safety on farms that grow fresh produce.
Previous studies of using insurance to regulate food safety rely on economic theories that yield competing conclusions. Optimists argue that insurance can promote efficient risk reduction. Skeptics counter that insufficient information regarding the root causes of contamination renders insurance impotent to reduce food safety risk. This Article adds a sociolegal perspective to this debate. Based on interviews with insurance professionals, the Article documents how, notwithstanding limited information, underwriters employ a variety of techniques to
Stefan's Independence Day post is far more erudite than mine. Kudos and thanks to him for the substantive legal content. This post covers more of a teaching point–one that I often think about in the background but want to being to the fore here.
I am focused in writing this on things like family reunions, local holiday festivities, grilling out, and fireworks. It has been a rocky road to the Fourth in these and other aspects this year. Overlapping causes can easily be identified. As if the continuing COVID-19 nightmare were not enough . . . .
I will start with COVID-19, however. I have heard of many who are missing family and other events this weekend because of positive COVID-19 diagnoses, test results, or exposures. I was sad to learn, for example, that Martina Navratilova had to miss the historic Wimbledon centennial celebration, including the Parade of Champions, yesterday. But there is more.
The air travel debacles have been well publicized. Weather, labor shortages, and other issues contribute to the flight changes and cancellations airlines need to make on this very popular travel weekend–expected to set records. And gas prices have stymied the trips of some by land (again
As a teaser to a forthcoming article I coauthored with two of my students (who co-presented with me) for the Business Law Prof Blog symposium back in the fall, I offer a short excerpt on business interruption insurance litigation resulting from governmental actions forcing business closures as a result of the pandemic, focusing on a recently decided Tennessee case.
In general, business lawyers got inventive in bringing legal claims of many kinds. A federal district court case recently decided in Tennessee, Nashville Underground, LLC v. AMCO Insurance Company, No. 3:20-cv-00426 (M.D. Tennessee, March 4, 2021), offers a notable example involving the interpretations of a business interruption insurance policy. The plaintiff in the action, a Nashville bar, restaurant, and entertainment venue, claimed coverage under the food contamination endorsement in its business interruption insurance policy for the damages suffered when it was forced to close its doors by governmental orders issued in March 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The insurer denied coverage. The court held for the defendant insurer on its motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim, finding the contract language unambiguous. The court’s conclusion in its opinion noted sympathy, in spite of the outcome.
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I recently received word from one of our former guest bloggers, Marcos Mendoza (whom I introduced here and who posted here, here, here, here, and here), that his most recent insurance article, The Limits of Insurance as Governance: Professional Liability Coverage for Civil Rights Claims Against Public School Districts, has been published in the Quinnipiac Law Review. It is available on SSRN here. The abstract follows.
Insurance intersects with people throughout their lives, sometimes with elements that are unobserved or misunderstood. That is often the case with “insurance as governance,” a form of private contractual regulation. This theory assumes that insurers, to minimize their financial losses, attempt to shape policyholder conduct by employing private regulatory measures, primarily through underwriting and contractual loss prevention methods. Insurance as governance is about risk reduction.
This article addresses a question regarding civil rights—do insurers influence the civil rights policies of public school districts? A broad legal arc encompasses civil rights litigation against schools, from freedom of speech complaints to sex-based claims involving students. School boards purchase professional liability insurance to defend their operational policies and actions. Previous research has not examined whether insurers attempt to shape