Recently filed cases in entertainment law, straight from the steps of the Los Angeles Superior Court.
April 01, 2004ALM Staff | Law Journal Newsletters |
Where an insurer accepts a tender of defense unconditionally, the insurer generally has the right to select counsel to defend the policyholder. There, the policyholder and the insurer share identical interests in seeing the matter resolved in their favor. Logic suggests that that even if a reservation of rights letter were issued to a policyholder, the insurer would still be able to select counsel to defend the policyholder. This is so because the attorney enrolling as counsel for the policyholder, although paid by the insurer, would be ethically obligated to represent the interests of the policyholder — his client — to the best of his abilities and to place the interests of the policyholder first. However, many courts have found that when an insurer offers a defense under a reservation of rights, a conflict of interest exists between the insurer and the insured relating to the defense of a suit against the insured. Therefore, the insured may, if he so elects, select independent counsel whose reasonable fees are to be paid by the insurance company. See Todd R. Smyth, Duty of Insurer to Pay for Independent Counsel When Conflict of Interest Exists Between Insured and Insurer, 50 A.L.R. 4th 932.
April 01, 2004Ralph S. Hubbard III and Seth A. SchmeeckleDishonest employees always have posed a problem for businesses. The average business may lose 6% of its annual revenues to employee fraud, and cumulatively the impact of employee theft on the economy is estimated to be $600 billion annually. See Association of Certified Fraud Examiners ("ACFE"), 2002 Report to the Nation on Occupational Fraud & Abuse, at ii, 4 (2002), available at www.cfenet.com/publications/rttn.asp. Although the average loss through employee embezzlement is $25,000, where computerized financial records or transactions are involved, the average loss increases nearly twentyfold. See National White Collar Crime Center, WCC Issue: Embezzlement/Employee Theft, at 2 (2002), available at http://nw3c.org/downloads/Computer_Crime_Weapon.pdf.
April 01, 2004Robert E. Johnston and Christopher L. LaFonEverything you need to find what's inside this issue.
April 01, 2004ALM Staff | Law Journal Newsletters |Recent cases of importance to your practice.
April 01, 2004ALM Staff | Law Journal Newsletters |Recent cases of importance to your practice.
April 01, 2004ALM Staff | Law Journal Newsletters |The latest real property law rulings you need to know.
April 01, 2004ALM Staff | Law Journal Newsletters |The latest rulings eminent domain law.
April 01, 2004ALM Staff | Law Journal Newsletters |The latest rulings of importance to your practice.
April 01, 2004ALM Staff | Law Journal Newsletters |Congress enacted the Telecommunications Act of 1996 to encourage development of telecommunications technologies, and in particular, to facilitate growth of the wireless telephone industry. The statute's provisions on pre-emption of state and local regulation have been frequently litigated. Last month, however, the Court of Appeals, in Chambers v. Old Stone Hill Road Associates (see infra, p. 7) faced an issue of first impression: Can neighboring landowners invoke private restrictive covenants to prevent construction of a cellular telephone tower? The court upheld the restrictive covenants, recognizing that the federal statute was designed to reduce state and local regulation of cell phone facilities, not to alter rights created by private agreement.
April 01, 2004Stewart E. Sterk