Missouri Lawyers Media Missouri legal news and public notices

Plaintiff was injured in a car crash and sought treatment from defendant. The parties entered a UCC lien in which plaintiff granted defendant a security interest in any proceeds plaintiff would receive from insurance or a tortfeasor. Plaintiff further purported ...

Tagged with: Lien Against Insurance/Tort Recovery Medical Lien Statutes

Where appellants challenged the denial of coverage for an insurance claim, the district court properly granted summary judgment based on precedent that a vexatious-refusal claim must fail when the insurer has no duty to cover the loss at issue. Judgment ...

Tagged with: Denial Of Coverage Vexatious Refusal

Plaintiff co-owned a business with Daniel and J. Carson Cates. The shareholders purchased life insurance policies, the proceeds of which would be used to purchase a deceased shareholder’s interest. After Daniel died, the company received the life insurance proceeds but ...

Tagged with: Failure to Purchase Shares Life Insurance Shareholder Policies

Where appellant homebuyer, who brought claims of negligent misrepresentation and claims under the Missouri Merchandising Practices Act against the sellers after the buyer experienced water damage in the  home’s basement, challenged a declaration in favor of the insurer finding that ...

Tagged with: duty to defend negligent misrepresentation Policy Occurrence

Where a general contractor asked its insurer to defend it in an action arising from the construction of an apartment complex, the claims did not clearly fall outside the scope of the coverage, and the alleged damage from the leaky ...

Tagged with: Construction Project duty to defend

Plaintiff filed a negligence action against defendant insurers on a claim of negligence, alleging that they negligently hired a contractor to remediate a leak in plaintiff’s home that subsequently caused plaintiff to become ill. The trial court granted summary judgment ...

Tagged with: Insurers’ Duty Independent of Policy Negligence

Where the primary insurer for the operator of an underground limestone-cave storage facility sought a declaration that losses related to collapses of the cave’s roof were not covered under the relevant policy, the cause of the losses was not “building ...

Tagged with: Cave Storage Facility Loss Coverage ‘Building Decay’

Defendant appealed from the denial of his motion for summary judgment and the grant of plaintiff’s cross-motion for summary judgment in a declaratory-judgment action relating to uninsured-motorist-coverage benefits. Where the district court correctly interpreted Missouri law governing UM benefits, it ...

Tagged with: Declaratory Judgment Diversity Action Uninsured-Motorist Coverage

Plaintiff appealed from the adverse grant of summary judgment in her ERISA claim arising from the denial of benefits. Where the plan reserved discretionary power to construe terms or make eligibility determinations, the district court properly granted summary judgment to ...

Tagged with: denial of benefits Discretionary Power ERISA

Where insurers challenged a partial summary judgment to respondent awarding an equitable garnishment of more than $5 million to respondent in a dispute arising from respondent’s claims of malicious prosecution and civil-rights violations against a city and police defendants, the ...

Tagged with: ambiguity equitable garnishment

Defendant appealed from the declaratory judgment entered in favor of plaintiff, finding that plaintiff was an insured under his father’s uninsured-motorist coverage under four policies issued by defendant and that the UM coverages could be stacked. On appeal, defendant argued ...

Tagged with: stacking Uninsured-Motorist Coverage