Skane Wilcox LLP - Announcements We look forward to seeing everyone next week at the MC2 18th Annual West Region Construction Defect and Insurance Coverage Conference in San Diego, California.  Wendy will be speaking on Friday, September 21, 2012, in a lecture entitled "Industry Leaders Predictions: Future Outlook of the CD Arena - 2013".      We also look forward to seeing everyone next week at the DRI Construction Law Seminar in Phoenix, Arizona.   Winning Results for Our Clients INSURANCE COVERAGE WIN After a long battle through the Delaware Superior Court and the Delaware Supreme Court the wait is over and the insurers, including our client, can claim victory!  Our client, an excess insurer, with several other excess insurers, filed motions for summary judgment/adjudication against Intel Corporation (Intel) asserting they have no obligation to defend Intel in a hotly contested anti-trust case (and other smaller cases) which was eventually settled by Intel.  The Superior Court granted our client's summary judgment motion finding under California law that our client owed no obligation to defend Intel because the policy below our client's excess policy never exhausted.  The Delaware Supreme Court affirmed the Superior Court's decision.  The arguments centered around the issues of exhaustion, reasonable expectations of the insured and whether the policy language was ambiguous. OUT OF THE GATE WIN Our attorneys recently persuaded the trial judge to change her tentative ruling against our client to a ruling in favor of our client!  Judges routinely grant plaintiffs leave to amend, especially with first-round demurrers such as our client's and rarely change their tentative rulings.  In this case, we argued that plaintiff failed to plead the requisite particulars necessary to state a claim for fraud and moved to strike that claim and the punitive damages based on plaintiff's failure to properly plead oppression, fraud or malice.  At the hearing, the judge made clear in her tentative ruling she was granting plaintiff leave to amend to allow the plaintiff an opportunity to plead new facts to state a valid fraud claim and seek punitive damages.  The judge even went so far as to state that she disagreed with our client that the plaintiff was incapable of curing the defects in the pleading.  We asserted and convinced the judge that plaintiff's artful pleading does not convert his breach of contract claim into fraud, and there can be no facts alleged to cure his pleading defects.  On the spot the judge changed her tentative ruling and sustained our client's demurrer without leave to amend and granted our client's motion to strike punitive damages. Everyone may reach us at the following office locations: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Los Angeles: 1055 W. 7th St., Suite 2850, Los Angeles, CA 90017 San Diego: 1230 Columbia Street, Suite 800, San Diego, CA 92101 San Francisco: 33 New Montgomery Street, Suite 710, San Francisco, CA 94105  Las Vegas: 1120 Town Center Drive, Suite 200, Las Vegas, NV 89144 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~