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ATLANTA — The Georgia Supreme Court on Feb. 17 answered questions certified to it from federal court and held that a third party can be found to have procured a life insurance policy when viewing the “totality of the relevant circumstances” in a trust’s suit seeking to collect death benefits on a $6 million life insurance policy the insurer claims was a stranger-originated life insurance (STOLI) policy that was procured by a third party in violation of Georgia law.
NEW YORK — Wrapping up a decade-old Employee Retirement Income Security Act lawsuit over residual annuities (RAs) that resulted in a $332 million class settlement, a New York federal judge on Feb. 17 granted awards from the common fund as requested in amounts including $96.28 million for attorney fees and $10,000 for a service award.
ST. LOUIS — Attorneys representing a putative class of plaintiffs who have sued Monsanto Co. in Missouri state court alleging that exposure to glyphosate, the active ingredient in the herbicide Roundup, causes cancer on Feb. 17 moved for preliminary approval of a $7.25 billion nationwide settlement with Bayer Corp., Monsanto’s parent company, which would resolve the claims.
RALEIGH, N.C. — Without providing an explanation, the North Carolina Supreme Court on Feb. 13 denied a motion for a temporary stay of a civil contempt order requiring former insurance mogul Greg Lindberg to pay $65,775,544 and his company to pay $56,901,099 for violating a temporary restraining order (TRO) regarding conversion of assets in insurers’ breach of contract suit against Lindberg, who once owned them, and his company.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on Feb. 13 affirmed a Texas federal jury’s finding that a defendant-appellant electronics manufacturer willfully infringed two claims of another entity’s patent on direct current to direct current (DC-DC) converters; the panel said substantial evidence supported both the jury’s finding and subsequent enhanced damages and attorney fees.
DOVER, Del. — The Delaware Supreme Court held Feb. 13 that insurers have adequately pleaded a breach of contract claim in their subrogation lawsuit seeking recovery from an application service provider for the amount they paid to nonprofit insureds for investigative and remediation steps arising from a ransomware attack, reversing a lower court’s grant of the provider’s motion to dismiss the insurers’ amended complaint and remanding.
NEW YORK — A federal judge in New York on Feb. 13 revised a March 2023 arbitration order in a race bias and retaliation putative class case brought by three current and former National Football League (NFL) coaches and denied in full arbitration sought by the NFL and three teams based on “[t]he NFL’s unilateral control over the dispute resolution process”; the trial court ruling was filed as the U.S. Supreme Court considers a petition for a writ of certiorari filed in the same case by the NFL and three teams concerning the enforceability of those same arbitration agreements that require Commissioner Roger Goodell to preside over the proceedings.
SEATTLE — A case that is part of a wave of putative class actions challenging a common use of forfeited nonvested matching retirement contributions would settle for an estimated $42,724,532 under a deal a Washington federal court was asked to grant preliminary approval in a Feb. 13 motion.
LOS ANGELES — A California federal judge on Feb. 13 largely granted motions to dismiss a putative class case against milk sellers and producers for allegedly falsely advertising their products as sustainable and environmentally friendly in violation of California’s unfair competition law (UCL), finding their specific misrepresentation claims too vague but allowing their claims that they were deceived by a milk logo with a happy cartoon cow to proceed.
NEW ORLEANS — A Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals majority affirmed a district court’s summary judgment ruling in a dispute over coverage for a sewage backup in an insured home, agreeing with the lower court that no question of fact exists regarding whether the source of the sewage backup was excluded under the homeowners policy.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The District of Columbia Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Feb. 13 issued a consolidated affirmance of two cases in which federal judges found jurisdiction over petitions to confirm arbitral awards collectively worth more than $252 million in favor of investors whose assets in the Crimean peninsula were found by separate tribunals to have been expropriated in 2014 by the Russian Federation in breach of a bilateral investment treaty (BIT).