Texas Supreme Court advisory

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April 3, 2009
COURT NAMED LEXISNEXIS
INSURANCE LAW CENTER’S
‘INSURANCE JURIST OF THE YEAR’

Legal publisher LexisNexis’s Insurance Law Center has named the Texas Supreme Court its 2008 “Insurance Jurist of the Year” in recognition for what the publisher called insurance rulings with the “greatest impact” last year.

Normally individual judges are recognized by the center’s advisory board, the company said in its announcement to the Court, but the board decided last year was an exception. Members of the advisory board include insurance law practitioners, law school professors who teach insurance law and the North Dakota insurance commissioner.

“The Board’s decision,” the publisher explained, “was based in large part on its unanimous view that the Texas Supreme Court has stood out as an entity, more than any single judge, justice, or other court, in addressing and answering a number of insurance-related questions that had long remained open in the Lone Star state and that remain unsettled in many states.

“The Board was compelled to recognize the Court because of the amazing example it set in placing insurance coverage issues at the forefront of its docket during 2008.”

The insurance jurist of the year is one of four individual awards the LexisNexis Insurance Law Center made. Others recognized a policyholder attorney, an attorney for an insurance company and a regulator.

In citing the Texas Supreme Court, the Insurance Law Center advisory board listed 16 insurance decisions that, by its analysis, split eight for insurers and seven for policyholders. One, Entergy Gulf States Inc. v. John Summers, was listed as undecided. The Court decided Entergy on rehearing Friday, leaving the initial judgment unchanged.

LexisNexis news release