It Might Be Negligence To Leave Out The Word Negligence (Unless It Isn’t)

Print

Are there “magic words” or are there not? Once again, we feel compelled to warn readers that “we need to know what we are doing.” A lot of people in this “business” of ours cross over jurisdictional lines whether rightly or not. There is a lot of material out there about the ethics of doing so. That’s a reasonable concern to have, but there is a far less discussed, but more serious, problem. It is called malpractice. That term is not limited to attorneys. It isn’t even limited to professionals. It is hard enough to know the law in a single jurisdiction. Know the “law” in every jurisdiction (e.g., state) is, frankly speaking, impossible.

If we are going to “practice” in the real estate world, we need to practice well, not malpractice. “Mal” is a “combing form,” one that is added to words. It comes from the French “mal,” and that came from the Latin “male” which meant “badly.” [We sure hope the word is pronounced differently than is the gender.] The bottom line, however, is that “malpractice” is practicing in a faulty or improper or inadequate manner. No reader of this blog wants to come within a million miles of anything “mal” in her or his practice. So, we need to know that we don’t know the law everyplace. One example is how various jurisdictions view liability waivers. Today, we write only about one aspect of that question – whether to effectively be released from one’s own negligence, a waiver must expressly say that “negligence” is being waived or whether waiving “all” claims for damage really means “all,” including those claims arising out of negligence. [Read more…]

Print

The Right To Use A Property (Itself) Might, Itself, Be “Tangible Property” (Read On)

Print

Today’s blog posting will be a slight deviation from our mission to cover real property law and real property law-related issues. We don’t think so. We think its conclusion could be relevant outside of a pure insurance context. Even if some conclude otherwise, certainly today’s’ Ruminating will be of interest to a subset of readers, those who think they know a thing or two about insurance coverage, but would like to test whether what they know is correct. To those readers who are uninterested in how the sausage of insurance law is made, we concede that today’s posting looks like it belongs in an insurance law blog. Though that argument could be made, it hasn’t deterred us because we think the subject is interesting.

Generally, a Commercial General Liability (CGL) Insurance policy will not cover purely economic losses. But, a California court in October of 2018 decided that “generally” does not mean always. [Read more…]

Print

Primary And Noncontributory – What’s The Scoop?

Print

Last week we wrote about a lease seemingly written by an inexperienced draftsperson. Though our point was to highlight the danger of inexperience, the court-reported situation we described also dealt with a missing insurance concept, that of calling (or not calling) for “primary” coverage. As a result, we got a few inquiries about the meaning or implication of that insurance term” and also about its sibling term, “non-contributory,” such as in: “The required coverage must be “primary and non-contributory.” So, here’s the scoop.

“Primary(ness)” (as does “noncontributory”) has to do with the priority of payment and only involves a situation where one party, named as an additional insured on the other’s liability insurance policy, also has its own insurance. When one of those two insurance policies is “primary,” and the other is not, the one that is primary will pay out until its policy limit is exhausted. At that point, if more needs to be paid, the other policy will cover the “excess.” [As to “noncontributory, we’ll get to it.] [Read more…]

Print

Experience Matters: Words Have Meanings (And An Insurance Pointer)

Print

Last week, we wrote about the need for competence when it comes to crafting deal documents such as a lease. Among the over 400 Ruminations prior blog postings are more than a dozen dealing with insurance. This week, we get to combine the two subjects thanks to a December 5, 2018 unpublished ruling from a New Jersey appeals court resolving an insurance dispute. The facts are mundane, but provide a roadmap for us today.

A tenant’s employee “injured himself using a freight elevator inside the leased premises.” He sued the landlord for negligence. [The workers compensation law barred him from suing his employer, the tenant.] Relying on the lease’s indemnification provision, the landlord claimed back against the tenant. It also demanded that the tenant’s insurer honor the landlord’s status as an additional insured under the tenant’s liability policy. As will be seen, the appellate court made the landlord unhappy. To understand why we’ll start with the lease’s indemnification clause. It read as follows: [Read more…]

Print

Who’s On First? Keeping Track Of Basic Facts

Print

Please don’t ask for the central theme of today’s blog posting. We’ve done so already and came up empty-headed. The closest we’ve come is that we’re writing about how a stitch in time saves nine.

The genesis of today’s subject is a very simple case that reached a California appellate court. It probably isn’t worth looking at, but for those compelled to do so, the February 2, 2017 decision can be seen by clicking: HERE.] The court was confronted with a situation where, on its face, the signatory to an indemnification agreement was not authorized to sign the agreement on behalf of the indemnitor (the one who would have to pay). There was no indication that the document was signed with the intention of fooling anyone. It appears that the person signing the agreement was confused or ignorant as to “who” should have done the signing. We’ll explain.

There were two limited liability companies. One was the sole manager of the second. We’ll call the first company, the parent, and the second, the child. The parent had a managing member. He was the kind of person who breathes, unlike, say, Citizens United. He could sign on behalf of the parent, but when signing for the child, the “proper” signatory would be “by parent, as sole member of child, by breathing person, as managing member of parent.” Get it? If not, then realize that the “person” who could sign for the child was the parent. But, because the parent was an entity who could not hold a pen, a “real” person needs to sign on behalf of the parent. [Read more…]

Print

We Can Waive Claims, Not Subrogation

Print

What’s an “evergreen”? An evergreen contract is one that automatically renews unless one party or the other affirmatively terminates it. An “evergreen” blogging topic is one that never dies; one that we can visit over and over. The topic of insurance waivers of subrogation is such an “evergreen.”

We just reviewed a March 22, 2017 decision from a United States District Court sitting in New Jersey. Let us tell you some things about it. It has a twist. [You can see it yourself by clicking: HERE.]

Allegedly “unsupervised, untrained, and unlicensed maintenance workers” employed by a residential landlord were accused of misusing (our euphemism) an acetylene torch and thereby setting a fire that destroyed tenants’ property. The tenants’ insurance company paid the losses and sued the landlord for recovery.
The landlord (almost certainly, the landlord’s own insurance company) responded that each tenant-insured had waived and released it from liability for such a fire. [Read more…]

Print

Rely On Your Own Insurance And Stop Arguing About It (Again)

Print

It doesn’t matter how much you want to continue riding. Beating a dead horse isn’t going to get you anywhere. Or, so we have been told. Nonetheless, we are going to say, for the umpteenth time, landlords and tenants should carry AND RELY UPON their own insurance policies.

But, why should I? After all, can’t I just be happy knowing that I am an “additional insured” on the other’s commercial liability policy? [Just to make the Ruminations position clear: NO.] Before we elaborate on “here’s why,” we’ll digress. [Casablanca: “I am shocked – shocked – to find out” that Ruminations will digress.] Find us the person that couldn’t have spent more time with friends and family if she or he hadn’t been on the phone arguing with someone over the “additional insured” language in a lease, mortgage or other agreement. [Read more…]

Print

Don’t Expect A Thank You Card From The Insurance Carrier

Print

We’ve written about many of the “elements” implicated by today’s blog posting, but don’t think we’ve ever illustrated them in the context of a specific lease provision. Among them are the concepts of “no-fault, risk shifting” and “not spending negotiating capital, effort, time or money” on protecting an insurance company (unless you happen to be working for one).

Take a look at the following provision. We don’t offer it as the “perfect” text for every lease or, for that matter, any lease. You’ll have to decide that for yourself. We offer it so that we don’t have to stop writing this posting when you reach the upcoming period.

None of Landlord or Landlord’s agents, partners, members, employees or any other person acting on behalf of Landlord will be liable for, and Tenant waives all claims against Landlord and Landlord’s agents, employees, members, directors, contractors, and those acting for or under Landlord for any and all loss, cost, liability, damage and expense (including attorney’s fees and disbursements), penalties or fines incurred in connection with, or arising out of, any damage to, or loss (by theft or otherwise) of, any of Tenant’s property or of the property of any other person, irrespective of the cause of such injury, damage or loss (including the acts or negligence of any other tenant or occupant of the Shopping Center or of any owners or occupants of adjacent or contiguous property) and whether occasioned by or from explosion, falling plaster, broken glass, electricity, smoke, wind, water, snow or ice being upon or coming through or from the street, roof, subsurface, skylight, trapdoor or windows, electric wiring, plumbing, dampness, water, gas, steam or other pipes or sewage, or the failure of the air conditioning or refrigeration system, or the breaking of any electric wire, the bursting, leaking or running of water from any tank, washstand, water closet, waste pipe, sprinkler system, radiator, or any other pipe in, above, upon or about the Leased Premises or the Building or the Shopping Center, or which may at any time hereafter be placed therein, or from any other cause whatsoever.

[Read more…]

Print