Figures

1,696

Insurance companies are the litigation champions, confronting an average of 1,696 lawsuits, spanning from product liability and environmental class actions to directors and officers claims, and even coverage fights over hurricanes and terrorist attacks, according to a new survey of corporate litigation trends from international law firm Fulbright Jaworski LLP.

In its third annual survey of corporate litigation trends—pulling data from 422 in-house law departments worldwide—Fulbright found that U.S. companies face an average of 305 pending lawsuits internationally. For large U.S. companies—those with $1 billion or more in annual gross revenue—the number of lawsuits soared to 556 cases, with an average of 50 new disputes emerging each year for close to half of them.

$7.3 million

The amount the American Bar Endowment, a non-profit sponsor of group insurance and charitable giving programs for the 413,000 members of the American Bar Association, has donated to “improve the justice system and foster the highest ideals of the legal profession.”

1,779

The number of civil aviation accidents reported in 2005, which is up from 1,717 in 2004. Total fatalities fell, from 636 to 600. Small scheduled airlines had six accidents in 2005, compared with four in 2004, according to the Insurance Information Institute.

$17,000

The amount in insurance customer premium payments the Louisiana Department of Insurance alleges a Delhi, La., agent took for her own personal use. Janis Dalene Simms Blaylock, 29, was served by department fraud investigators with a cease and desist order and a summary suspension of her insurance license at 2385 Duckworth Road in Pioneer, La.

In addition to taking the premium payments, Blaylock allegedly filed false claims on policies of unsuspecting policyholders to recoup the losses. Investigators also claim that Blaylock submitted at least 14 false insurance claims between August 2005 and January 2006.

$91.8 million

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will hand out $91.8 million in direct assistance grants to 860 fire departments and first responder organizations through the department’s Assistance to Firefighters Grant program. Since 2001, the AFG has provided $2.4 billion in grants to fire departments and first responder organizations for response equipment, personal protective equipment, vehicles, and fire prevention activities. DHS received more than 18,000 applications for nearly $2.5 billion in grant requests in FY06.

Topics Lawsuits USA