Tag

Appellate

Twenty-Seven Collins Einhorn Farrell PC Attorneys Recognized by Super Lawyers®

Collins Einhorn Farrell PC announced today that 15 of its attorneys have been named to the 2018 Michigan Super Lawyers list, and an additional 12 attorneys were named to the 2018 Michigan Rising Stars list. In addition, Michael Sullivan and Melissa Graves received additional accolades. Michael Sullivan was listed in the Top 100: 2018 Michigan Super Lawyers list and the Top 50: 2018 Michigan Business Super Lawyers list, and Melissa Graves was named to the Top 50: 2018 Women Michigan Super Lawyers list and the Top 25: 2018 Women Business Super Lawyers list. For full details and a list of all recipients, click on the headline.

16 Collins Einhorn Farrell PC Attorneys Named to 2019 Best Lawyers in America© List

Collins Einhorn Farrell PC is pleased to announce that 16 of its attorneys have been named to the 2019 edition of Best Lawyers in America©. Additionally, Deborah Lujan has been named the Best Lawyers 2019 Litigation – Insurance “Lawyer of the Year” in Michigan due to her exemplary work in defense litigation. For the full list of attorneys selected for this prestigious award, click on the headline.

Michigan No-Fault Update: Bazzi v Sentinel Ins Co — Supreme Court Decision

It’s a long-standing principle that no-fault insurers can assert common-law defenses, such as fraud in the application, in order to obtain rescission of a policy and avoid liability for payment of benefits on a claim. If a policy is rescinded, it’s as if the policy was never issued in the first place.

The innocent-third-party rule was a judicially created exception to this principle. Under the rule, insurers couldn’t use the defense of fraud in the application against a third party (that is, someone other than the policyholder) making a claim under a policy. The reasoning was that, because the third-party claimant didn’t commit the fraud, it was unfair for insurance companies to rescind the policy based on fraud.

We take a look at the recent Michigan Supreme Court decision in Bazzi v Sentinel Ins Co, and what this means for insurance companies moving forward. Click the headline for further details.

Collins Einhorn Obtains Dismissal of Class-Action Complaint

Collins Einhorn Farrell attorneys Theresa M. Asoklis, Michael J. Cook, and Eric M. Kociba obtained dismissal of a class-action complaint claiming that a law firm violated federal and state law. The federal district court agreed that the plaintiffs’ claims, which were based on the interest rate in state-court judgments, were “functionally appeals of state court decisions.” Since federal courts cannot act as an appellate court for state-court judgments, the court lacked jurisdiction and dismissed the plaintiffs’ claims. To read the full outcome, click on the headline.

Court of Appeals Holds Anti-Assignment Clauses Unenforceable, but Healthcare Providers Can Only Recover Benefits One-Year-Back from Date of Assignment

On May 8, 2018, the Michigan Court of Appeals issued a published opinion addressing two legal issues that have been hotly contested in the wake of last year’s Covenant v State Farm decision, which held that healthcare providers do not have a statutory basis to sue no-fault insurers for personal protection insurance (“PIP”) benefits under the Michigan No-Fault Act. To read further details, click on the headline.

Collins Einhorn Attorneys Obtain Reversal and Summary Disposition from Michigan Court of Appeals in Multi-million Dollar Premises-liability Case

Collins Einhorn Attorneys Kenneth C. Merritt, Kari L. Melkonian, and Jonathan B. Koch successfully defended a multi-million dollar premises-liability case. The defendant was an auction-services company hired to conduct an estate sale at a private residence. After the estate sale concluded, the plaintiff was injured when she fell down a three-foot drop-off created by a missing set of stairs after she stepped through a set of exterior doors in the house’s dining room. Based on that incident, plaintiff filed this premises-liability suit against the auction company, claiming several million dollars in damages. After the trial court denied defendant’s motion for summary disposition, Collins Einhorn attorneys obtained a rare grant of leave to appeal from the Court of Appeals. After full briefing and oral argument, the Court of Appeals reversed. The panel held that the trial court should have granted summary disposition because the defendant lacked possession and control over the property and because the hazard was open-and-obvious. The Supreme Court denied plaintiff’s application for leave to appeal.

The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals opens new paths for debt-collection-practices defense by applying constitutional standing requirements to the FDCPA

In Hagy v Demers & Adams, Case No. 17-3696 (February 16, 2018), the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals held that a plaintiff with an otherwise valid claim under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act did not satisfy the “case and controversy” requirement under Article III of the federal constitution.

An attorney representing the creditor in Hagy sent a letter to the debtor’s attorney stating that the debtor didn’t owe anything else to the creditor. The letter didn’t include disclosures required under the FDCPA. So the debtor filed a lawsuit under the FDCPA and its Ohio-law analogue. The trial court declined to dismiss the debtor’s lawsuit, but the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed. To read the full client alert, click on the headline.

Remember that 6 1/2 year old mistake? No? Neither does the law.

In 2013, the Michigan legislature enacted a statute of repose for legal-malpractice claims. Those claims are still subject to a two-year statute of limitations, which starts running when the attorney stops representing the client as to the matters out of which the claim arose. Likewise, legal-malpractice claims are still subject to the six-month discovery rule,…

Attorneys Ashley Dickey and Kevin Moloughney Obtain Summary Disposition in Slip and Fall Case

Attorneys Ashley S. Dickey and Kevin P. Moloughney obtained summary disposition in Michigan’s 6th Circuit Court in a slip and fall case involving a snow removal company and third-party beneficiary case on the grounds of no genuine issue of material fact regarding the Plaintiff’s claims and Co-Defendant condominium complex’s claims. Additionally, the Court found that Plaintiff failed to allege a separate and distinct duty that the snow removal company owed her outside of its contractual duties with the condominium complex such that the snow removal company cannot be held liable in tort for non-performance of a contractual duty.

Legal Malpractice Update: Estate of Nash v City of Grand Haven

The Court of Appeals adopted an expansion of the attorney-client privilege in Estate of Nash v City of Grand Haven (2017). Attorney-client communications relating to legal advice are privileged, of course. But what if another party communicates with both a party and that party’s attorney in an attempt to develop a common legal strategy? Ordinarily,…

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