July 2013 - JERVIS ICI LTD

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT ENFORCES “LIMITATION OF LIABILITY”

The United States District Court for the Southern District of New York in a case argued by our law firm held in a thorough and detailed twenty-eight (28) page decision that the freight forwarder and customs broker’s “limitation of liability” was binding. The Court also flatly rejected Plaintiffs’ argument that the freight forwarder was responsible for alleged damage to cargo during trucking because the trucker allegedly did not have a license and/or permit to move cargo intrastate in New York.

FACTUAL BACKGROUND

The Plaintiffs are two subrogated insurance carriers […]

A Parting of the Ways
The Approach of Canadian Courts to Bifurcation of Bad Faith Claims on First-Party Property Losses

By Havelock Madill
The trend as seen in the United States of insureds conjoining bad faith claims with suits arising from denial of first-party property losses is, perhaps not surprisingly, making its way into Canadian insurance practice and jurisprudence with increasing frequency. The Canadian courts are divided on whether the bad faith claims should be severed from and stayed pending the determination of the contractual dispute. Where bifurcation has occurred, it has been largely driven by the paramount […]

QUEBEC SUPERIOR COURT RULES THAT TRUCKER’S LIABILITY LIMIT IS BASED ON CONTRACT WEIGHT, NOT THE WEIGHT OF THE CARGO ACTUALLY CARRIED.

SHAWN K. FAGUY

Our firm represented St. Paul Travelers (“Travelers”), the subrogated insurer of Boutique Jacob Inc. (“Jacob”), a well known clothing retailer. Some of Jacob’s merchandise was destroyed by fire whilst being trucked westward from Montreal. Our mandate was to recover as much as possible for our client.

Jacob had a contract with Purolator Courier Ltd. (“Purolator”) to transport its goods from Montreal to its many retail locations throughout Canada. On March 28, 2005, Jacob remitted […]

INHERENT VICE IN MARINE INSURANCE LAW:
THE CASE OF THE “BENGAL ENTERPRISE”

By J. Kenrick Sproule, Sproule Faguy

T.M. NOTEN B.V. V. PAUL CHARLES HARDING
(Originally published in Seaports and the Shipping World – September 1990 Issue)

Perhaps one of the most confounding issues in marine insurance law involves the inherent vice exclusion. When goods are insured on all risks basis the usual terms exclude loss, damage or expense proximately caused by inherent vie or nature of the subject matter insured. This means that damage or loss caused by the nature of the thing itself, as opposed to damage […]