Insurance in the Courts

• Published date: 01 September 2009
• Author: Randy Maniloff,Jeffrey W. Stempel,Marc Mayerson
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6296.2009.01170.x
• Date: 01 September 2009

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Risk Management and Insurance Review, 2009, Vol.12, No. 2, 295-307

INSURANCE IN THE COURTS

Randy Maniloff

Marc Mayerson

Jeffrey W. Stempel

INBURST OF ACTIVITY,TEXAS SUPREME COURT MESSES WITH INSURERS AND

POLICYHOLDERS (AND THAT ISNOT NECESSARILY A BAD THING)

To perhaps state the obvious, Texas is a big state with a large population, an impor-

tant business community, and lots of insurance controversies. In spite of this, the Texas

Supreme Court has not always been a consistent source of insurance law precedent.

In many years, the Court has seemed to be content to let insurance issues percolate

through the state judicial system, even at the cost of having arguably inconsistent de-

cisions among different appeals court panels or trial court rulings. But 2008 was not

such a year. The Texas Supreme Court issued a veritable barrage of decisions on a

number of important and previously unsettled insurance issues. The Court’s activity

in the area earned it designation as one of the LexisNexis “Insurance Law Persons of

the Year”/“Insurance Judge of the Year” even though those designations are generally

intended to be awarded to individuals. The Court was also specifically noted in the

Mealey’s “Top Ten” review. See www.lexisnexis.com; See Randy J. Maniloff & Jennifer

Wojciechowski, 8th Annual Insurance Coverage Best in Show: The Ten Most Significant De-

cisions of 2008,23M

EALEY’SLITIGATION REPORT:INSURANCE, No. 8 (Dec. 18, 2008) p. 1,

3. (Court’s decisions were “thorough, frequently review the national landscape on an

issue as part of its decision making process and are often accompanied by concurring

and dissenting opinions. Agree or disagree with its results, there is no denying that the

Supreme Court of Texas is not afraid of hard work.”)

The LexisNexis award (Authors Maniloff and Stempel contributed to the selection as

well as praising it), was appropriate. Proving that the whole is more than the sum of

Mr. Maniloff and his firm represent insurers in coverage disputes. He is a frequent author on

insurance matters, including an annual survey of the “TopTen” insurance cases for Mealey’s Pub-

lications. Mr. Mayerson and his firm representpolicyholders in coverage disputes. He maintains

an insurance weblog at insurancescrawl.com. Professor Stempel is the Doris S. and Theodore B.

Lee Professor of Law at the William S. Boyd School of Law at University of Nevada, Las Vegas

and author of Stempel on Insurance Contracts (3rd ed. 2006 & Supp. 2009). Given the collaborative

nature of this article, the views expressed are not necessarily those of each author. Neither are

opinions expressed in this article necessarily those of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas,White

& Williams, Spriggs & Hollingsworth, or their respective clients or constituents.

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