Law Blog

While in the process of divorcing, your attorney will remind you that you cannot change beneficiary designations on your accounts until the divorce is finalized.  It is not uncommon to want to put the divorce out of your mind, especially if your divorce has lasted a long time. However, while you may want to not think about it, remember that you need to change you...

The Holding In Teufel v. Am. Family Mut. Ins. Co., 244 Ariz. 383, 419 P.3d 546 (2018), the Arizona Supreme Court recently held that a Contractual Liability Exclusion in homeowner policies did not apply to a claim for negligent excavation against the Insured, an alleged builder-vendor, because the claim arose from the Insured’s alleged breach of a common law d...

In Arizona, parents who are no longer married or not living together share parenting of their minor children.  Sometimes they share equally and sometimes disproportionately with one of the parents possibly due to work schedules or maybe, because one parent is not as involved with the minor children as the other parent. Typically, each parent makes day-to-...

Taxes and the internet are not two things typically lumped together. However, last week, the Supreme Court addressed those two issues in the case of South Dakota v. Wayfair, when it re-evaluated the question from a 1992 Supreme Court case as to whether state taxes must be collected if the seller isn’t physically located within the state. Twenty-six years...

Residential Construction Defect (“CD”) litigation begins when unsatisfied homeowners file claims against the developer/general contractor (“GC”) for alleged construction defects. A common misconception amongst subcontractors is that CD claims and lawsuits are matters to be dealt with by the subcontractor’s insurer, and are not the concern of the individua...

Marketing a product as “Made in the USA” or “Made in America” can provide a competitive advantage to companies using the designation. Some view the designation as signifying a safer or higher-quality product. Many consider the act of purchasing such products patriotic—supporting jobs and industry at home rather than overseas. Because o...

Do you vacation at least once or twice a year? You should. Your body and brain need a break. Most of us work hard, but are not built to work every single day without some downtime. If you have a family, they may even want to spend some time with you! I was speaking with another attorney recently who was lamenting about an upcoming vacation with his wife and kids. H...

PHOENIX, Ariz. (07/01/2018) – Jaburg Wilk named three attorneys – Micalann C. Pepe, Jeffrey Silence and Michael Dvoren - as partners of the firm effective July 1, 2018. Micalann Pepe is an insurance, litigation, and business law attorney and represents her insurer clients in insurance coverage disputes and bad faith litigation. She graduated from Arizona State...

The Holding In Cincinnati Indem. Co. v. Southwestern Line Constructors Joint Apprenticeship and Training Program, et al, 2018 WL 2330627 (May 31, 2018), the Arizona Court of Appeals upheld summary judgment granted to an insurer because, under the Policy’s definition of “occurrence” as an “accident,” a single event caused by severa...

Life seems to be made up of many rules, written and unwritten. Most are a matter of common sense, like just being nice to people you meet and deal with. It sounds so obvious you may be asking yourself why I would spend time even mentioning it. Despite being obvious, I’ll bet someone just came to mind who you dealt with recently and the dealings were unpleasan...