A section of the Union Pacific train tracks in downtown Los Angeles has been littered with thousands of shredded boxes, packages stolen from cargo containers that stop in the area to unload.

The NHL and 20 of its teams claimed to have lost over $1 billion over the COVID-19 pandemic, and they’re suing five of their insurance providers for reimbursement.

No employer wants to find themselves in the midst of a workers compensation matter, especially when the employee in question was injured through no fault of the employer.

This problem starts with California’s notoriously employee-friendly workers compensation rules, which requires employers to pay for employees’ medical treatment if they are hurt on the job. This holds true even in cases where the employer is not at fault and injuries were caused by a negligent third party.

Fortunately, California also gives businesses or their workers compensation carriers the right to subrogate against those negligent third parties to recover any benefits they might have paid to injured workers. Through additional litigation, employers can seek reimbursement for these paid benefits that were made on behalf of an injured employee.

The United States District Court for the Central District of California, applying California law, has held that a D&O insurer cannot rely on an excess ‘other insurance’ provision to preclude a duty to defend.

The construction industry is a key contributor to California’s economy. According to the Associated General Contractors of America, in 2019, the construction sector contributed $118.1 billion of the state’s total gross domestic product.

In its recently released annual report, the ATRA identified 8 jurisdictions on its 2021 hellholes list – which, in order, include: (1) California (with the plaintiffs’ bar taking advantage of unique California laws like the Private Attorney General Act); (2) New York City (particularly regarding Americans With Disabilities Act accessibility claims and an activist attorney general battling climate change with energy companies), (3) Georgia....

California has been a hotbed of litigation regarding COVID-19 business interruption claims. The vast majority of the trial courts have held in favor of insurers and against businesses.

Two of California’s worst wildfires in 2018 cost Allstate Corp. a half-billion dollars, but the insurance conglomerate was able to give investors some reassuring news: It had already shrunk its footprint in California by half, creating a buffer of sorts against future losses.

A valiant effort by a California workers’ compensation carrier to make it more difficult for an employee to argue employer fault and settle around a workers’ compensation carrier’s statutory lien and right of reimbursement fell on deaf ears recently, when the California Court of Appeals rejected the notion that the workers’ compensation carrier has adequate standing to challenge . . .

Santa Barbara County Fire officials are continuing to fight the Alisal Fire in Santa Barbara County. The Alisal Fire is now 41% contained, fire officials reported Friday morning.



Officials attribute the jump in containment to cooperative winds and the hard work of fire crews.

Three homes and two outbuildings have been destroyed by the fire. In total, 439 buildings have been threatened by the Alisal Fire.

1,731 personnel continue to fight the fire’s spread.

A significant increase in vehicle theft and vandalism in California has led to a surge in comprehensive auto insurance claims in the state, a new report from Mercury Insurance says.

A fire burning in a mobile home park in the Delta town of Isleton destroyed 30 structures and threatens 20 more but is expected to be contained by Tuesday’s end, according to the River Delta Fire Protection District.

A twin-engine plane that killed at least two people and left a swath of destruction in a San Diego suburb nose-dived into the ground after repeated warnings that it was flying dangerously low, according to a recording.

The Caldor Fire, burning in eastern California and western Nevada, became the second incident to take wildfire behavior in a direction never recorded before 2021: Across the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

A proposed class-action lawsuit has been filed against the companies who run the oil line that dumped hundreds of thousands of crude oil off the coast of California over the weekend.