by KPMLAW | Nov 4, 2015 | Events, KPMBlog, News, Uncategorized
KPM LAW’s Gary Reinhardt, Managing Partner of KPM’s Coverage & Fraud Department, will present at The Property & Liability Resource Bureau’s Eastern Regional Adjusters Conference in Atlanta, Georgia, on November 10-11, 2015. An AV-rated attorney who serves as General Counsel to the International Association of Special Investigation Units, Gary is speaking on the latest trends and strategies in property fraud claims. Gary and the team at KPM LAW hope to see you at this valuable two-day conference. More information can be found at http://www.plrbregionalconferences.org/. ...
by KPMLAW | Oct 17, 2015 | KPMBlog, News, Uncategorized
Written by Gary Reinhardt, Esq. With significant statutory changes looming, the Virginia Supreme Court expanded the reach of Underinsured Motorist coverage in the case of Bratton v. Selective Insurance, decided on September 17, 2015. In Bratton, the plaintiff’s decedent, a dump truck driver, was an employee of a paving subcontractor working on a highway asphalt project. The plaintiff’s decedent hauled hot asphalt to the job site and dumped the asphalt into the bucket of a front end loader. The dump truck driver’s job required him to periodically exit his dump truck to check for spillage of the asphalt. Given that the job was being done at night, as an additional safety measure, the superintendent for the paving subcontractor parked his pick-up truck with flashing lights and headlights illuminated at the start of the work zone. The pick-up truck was parked approximately 200 feet from where the dump truck stopped to unload asphalt. At the time of the accident, the decedent had exited the cab of his dump truck and was standing near the truck. He had been out of the truck for less than 30 seconds when two drunk drivers barreled past the superintendent’s pick-up truck and struck the front end loader. The decedent was found pinned between one of the drunk driver’s vehicles, the front end loader and the rear of the dump truck. He died as a result of his injuries. The plaintiff claimed that both the UIM policy of the dump truck and the UIM policy of the pick-up were available to the dump truck driver’s estate; the dump truck’s policy under the theory that the...
