Hunton Insurance Recovery Blog

Earlier this week, Canada’s transport minister announced that a drone had collided with a commercial aircraft, the first confirmed collision of its kind in North America. Thankfully, the aircraft sustained only minor damage and was able to land safely. But this recent incident, which many commentators believed was inevitable given the proliferation of consumer and commercial drones, highlights the potential risks associated with drone operations.

Does the term "wrongful act" always require that the conduct at issue be "wrongful"? In at least one D&O insurance policy, the answer may not be as clear as it seems. A federal district court in Texas recently denied an insurer's motion to dismiss a company's coverage claim for nearly $5 million in costs the company incurred defending a statutory appraisal lawsuit filed by disgruntled shareholders, citing the D&O policy's "terribly" written definition of "wrongful act," which may have been written so broadly that it provides coverage for "acts" that are not actually "wrongful."

This past Monday, August 14, a federal magistrate judge explained to an insurer that “you can’t always get what you want” when he denied the carrier’s motion to dismiss claims arising from a July 4, 2015 Rolling Stones concert, concluding that the facts in the complaint allege a properly pled claim.