Publications
'Zeig' Still Governs Exhaustion of Underlying Policy Limits in New York
June 30, 2011
On Jan. 9, 1928, Judge Augustus Hand, then sitting on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, called it as he saw it in Zeig v. Massachusetts Bonding & Ins. Co., and to this day courts across the nation have followed and continue to follow this seminal decision on triggering excess insurance. In the last few years, however, several courts have taken the time to reexamine Zeig. While a few courts, most notably in California, have questioned Judge Hand’s rationale and strayed from Zeig’s holding, most courts, including most notably the Southern District of New York and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, have reaffirmed Zeig’s guiding principles with regard to the exhaustion of underlying policy limits.