Professional Liability Blog

Your house building company (Builder) is halfway done with the building of a large house when during a thunderstorm, lighting strikes the house, catching it on fire and destroying it. The Builder does everything he can to rebuild the house as fast as possible but he still ends up being 4 months late in finishing the house. Builder’s contract had a serious penalty for each day the job was delayed in being completed. Builder contests the penalty on the basis of the Impossibility Defense. 

Claims made coverage started being issued by insurers to professionals in the 1990’s. Before then, only occurrence triggered policies had been issued. The popularity of the coverage was partly because claims made coverage was considerably cheaper than occurrence coverage. Why?Simply because the claims-made and reported coverage provided less coverage for the professional. 

At the request of the developer of 21 Christian Condominium Association (“Developer”), Pioneer did a property condition assessment (“PCA”) of a 12-story residential structure.  The developer then provided the PCA to all prospective condominium purchasers.  The 21 Christian Condominium Association (“Association”), on behalf of its members, later sued Pioneer for negligent misrepresentation in the preparation of the PCA.  After the circuit court granted summary judgment for Pioneer, the appellate court reversed and held Association had adequately pled the elements of negligent misrepresentation,