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Kateri Persinger

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Reviewing philosopher Mark Rowlands’ 2012 work Can Animals Be Moral?, Jessica Pierce wrote in the Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, “The question, ‘Can animals be moral?’ has suffered the worst kind of philosophical denial: an almost complete lack of interest by ‘serious’ philosophers.”

No longer.  In an effort to apply “general canon[s] of contract interpretation,” the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania – in a recent insurance-coverage opinion of all places – implicitly (if not explicitly) considered this timeless, vexing question and concluded that “[a]nimals do not have conscious agency and are not subject to human law.”

In the honorable pursuit of robust coverage law – really, is there a more noble pursuit? – the court rendered raccoons and their woodland “companions” as nothing more than legal roadkill.  Their demise, however, was not in vain.  The court’s decision serves as a good reminder to all that just because a term used in an insurance policy is not defined does not mean that it is ambiguous.Continue Reading Raccoons as legal roadkill: The Western District of Pennsylvania denies coverage for damage caused by masked bandits

Recently, the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania gave policyholders another victory in the continuing battle with insurers over application of the “multiple trigger” doctrine.  In Pennsylvania Manufacturers’ Association Insurance Co. v. Johnson Matthey, Inc., the Commonwealth Court held that the multiple-trigger approach – which expands the number of policies potentially available to provide coverage for long-tail…

American International Group, Inc. (“AIG”) recently announced that it entered into a significant reinsurance agreement with a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (“Berkshire”). Reportedly, that agreement “covers 80% of substantially all of AIG’s U.S. Commercial long-tail exposures for accident years 2015 and prior.”  While AIG states that it “will retain sole authority to handle and…

Recently, resolving an insurance-coverage dispute, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit held that “for a contract to be considered a renewal, it must contain the same, or nearly the same, terms as the original contract.”  The court’s precedential ruling in Indian Harbor Insurance Co. v. F&M Equipment, Ltd., No.14-1897 (Oct.15, 2015), which…