Who Is Liable for a Driver in a Missouri Auto Case?
After a Missouri motor vehicle crash, the first auto liability question is usually whether the driver was negligent. The next question is often harder and more valuable: whether someone else is legally responsible for that driver’s conduct. In cases…
Missouri Product Liability Law: The Complete Guide
The framework, the doctrines, the principles of safe design and safe warnings, and the practical realities of investigating and litigating a products case Product liability in Missouri is a hybrid creature, and the practitioner who forgets it will…
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…
Insured Contract The Enumerated Categories
The Five Specific Insured Contracts, and Why They Matter Most When the Catch-All Is Gone Parts One through Three of this series concentrated on the broad catch-all — subpart (f) of the insured contract definition — because it reaches the widest range of…
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…
Insured Contracts: When the Carrier Gets It Wrong
Insured Contract Coverage, Excess Judgments, and Extra-Contractual Exposure The first two installments in this series were about coverage that exists. Part One located the insured contract provision in the Commercial General Liability (“CGL”), commercial…
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.…
Inside the Insured Contract
Indemnification, Assumption of Liability, and What Actually Triggers Coverage Part One introduced the insured contract provision identifying it in the three liability forms most often standing behind a commercial defendant — the Commercial General…