Catherine will be presenting an Insurance Section Webinar on Wednesday, March 25, 2020 from 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m. CDT on the hot topic of recent developments in UM/UIM litigation. (Ok, maybe not the hottest topic currently, but let’s be real. Don’t you want to think about something other than Coronavirus for an hour? Plus it’s the perfect CLE for social distancing. You can get without leaving your house!). Shawn Mechler, of the Crosley Law Firm in San Antonio, is the co-presenter.

Register here.

“ON THE ROAD AGAIN WITH UM/UIM: IS THERE A BRAINARD DETOUR ON THE HORIZON?”
MARCH 25, 2020

About the Webinar: Two recent opinions issued by the San Antonio Court of Appeals have called into question the way that Uninsured/Underinsured Motorist cases are handled in Texas. In Allstate Insurance Company v. Irwin, 2019 WL 3937281 (Tex. App. – San Antonio August 21, 2019) and Allstate Fire and Casualty Co. v. Inclan, 2020 EL 373061 (Tex. App. – Corpus Christi, January 23, 2020), two intermediate courts have held that attorneys’ fees are recoverable in UM/UIM declaratory judgment actions and in State Farm Mutual Automobile Association v. Cook, 2019 WL 4453763 (Tex. App. – San Antonio September 18, 2019) the San Antonio Court of Appeals held, in a matter of first impression, that an insurer can act in bad faith by failing to reasonably investigate or delaying payment on a claim for UM benefits until after the insured obtains a judgment establishing the liability and uninsured status of the other motorist. Meanwhile, litigants continue to squabble about the scope of discovery in UM/UIM cases, with mixed messages coming from the various intermediate courts and the Texas Supreme Court showing little willingness to review those decisions. What‘s a practitioner to do? In this webinar, Shawn Mechler, an attorney who regularly represents policyholders in UM/UIM cases and who authored the brief in the Irwin case, will discuss the question with Catherine L. Hanna, an attorney who represents insurance carriers.

Presenters: Catherine L. Hanna, Hanna & Plaut, L.L.P., Austin, Texas (Carrier) & Shawn M. Mechler, Crosley Law Firm, P.C., San Antonio, Texas (Policyholder)