AI CLAIMS EVALUATION SOFTWARE IN INSURANCE BAD FAITH DISCOVERY
A Practitioner’s Discovery Reference: Understanding the Systems, Framing the Requests, Managing the Cost I. Purpose and Framing AI claims evaluation software is now part of the claim-handling record in many insurance cases, and in the right…
When the Judgment Is Not the End: Attacking and Defending Final Judgments Under Missouri Law
How opposing parties — and liability insurers in particular — seek relief from judgments that bind or affect them, and how the judgment holder keeps what was won For the plaintiff’s lawyer, entry of judgment feels like the finish line. For the…
Investigating the Products Case: Preservation, Spoliation, and Cost
Why more products cases are won or lost in the first weeks than in the courtroom A products case is proved with physical evidence, and physical evidence is perishable. The unit that failed can be repaired, scrapped, returned to a lessor, cleaned by an…
Product Recall Evidence in Civil Litigation
A Missouri-specific framework where the common law decides what the jury hears, and where the recall question has no square answer Few pieces of evidence are as coveted by a products plaintiff, or as feared by the defense, as a manufacturer’s recall. A…
When the Document “Speaks for Itself” Deposing Witnesses About Written Agreements
Introduction: The Recurring Deposition Problem A familiar problem appears when an important document becomes the center of a deposition. The witness is shown a contract, policy, handbook, claim note, agency agreement, email, internal procedure, lease,…
Missouri Hearsay Objections in Insurance-Formation Cases: When the Statement Is the Evidence, Not Hearsay
Missouri insurance cases often turn on conversations: what the insured told the agent, what the agent asked, what the agent said the policy would do, what information was reported to the carrier, and what everyone understood at the time the policy was…
Mistaken Settlement Acceptance in Missouri: Rescission, Reformation, Waiver, and Release Problems for Lawyers
Part Two: What Missouri lawyers should do when a settlement acceptance was mistaken, incomplete, or followed by a disputed release I. Mistakes in Acceptance: Can a Party Escape a Settlement Agreement? One recurring issue in Missouri settlement…
Missouri Settlement Demands and the Mirror Image Rule: A Practical Guide for Lawyers
Part One: How Missouri lawyers should analyze offer, acceptance, counteroffers, and release terms in liability insurance settlement practice I. Introduction Settlement agreements are contracts. That statement sounds elementary, but its implications…
Process Is Proof: Claims-Handling Discovery in Missouri First-Party UM/UIM Cases
Why the insurer’s “we just valued it differently” defense rarely survives a record built piece by piece. The most effective tactic the defense has in a first-party uninsured or underinsured motorist (UM/UIM) case is not about the wreck or the medicine.…
Personal Counsel for the Defended Policyholder
When coverage is intact and the insurer is defending, the insured still has interests no one in the defense triangle is positioned to protect. Introduction Much of the writing on personal or independent counsel for an insured assumes a coverage fight:…