You know it is not going well when the court cites the Constitution at you in a breach of contract case.  But so it went in DeCosta v. Allstate Insurance Co., where the First Circuit last Friday reversed the trial court and granted summary judgment to Allstate on a suit involving a Standard Flood Insurance Policy (SFIP) under the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP). The case was relatively simple on both its facts and on the law.  DeCosta suffered a flood loss in 2009 and tendered his claim to his flood insurer, Allstate, who wrote coverage under the Write-Your-Own program of th...

Yesterday, Governor Jack Markell issued Executive Order No. 41, “Preparing Delaware for Emerging Climate Impacts and Seizing Economic Opportunities from Reducing Emissions.”  In many climate change discussions there exists an implied or overt assumption that society must choose between the economy and the climate.  Consistent with a theme that has resurfaced throughout his tenure as Governor, in Executive Order No. 41 Governor Markell explicitly rejects that choice:  “initiatives to responsibly reduce greenhouse gas emissions and prepare Delaware for climate im...

One of the guidelines for this blog is to stay away from extreme views. The effects of climate change do not need to be amplified to merit reasoned discussion and thoughtful application of what we as lawyers do. So what were we to do with a request from Simon & Schuster that we provide a pre-release review of Rivers by Michael Faris Smith, an "incidence of fiction presenting an all-too-real possibility." "All-too-real" meaning "a series of devastating storms has pummeled the American Southeast in the years since Hurricane Katrina. The federal government has drawn a boundary known as the Li...