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The Supreme Court will hear arguments on the constitutionality of the healthcare reform law and other issues pertaining to it for three days starting March 26.

Analysts and lawyers do not expect a decision in the case until late June.

The hearings will open March 26 with a one-hour debate on the threshold issues of whether a federal law called the Anti-Injunction Act makes challenges to the mandate premature until 2015.

George Patton Jr., an appellate lawyer with Bose McKinney & Evans LLP in Washington, D.C. and Indianapolis, explains that anti-injunction deals with whether the Court must wait until a tax is imposed on those who don’t want to buy individual insurance, and then a lawsuit filed, before it can act on the case. T

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I flew back from Dallas today with a dead pilot. 

Most of us go through our lives with little awareness of the toll that America’s wars are taking on our military or the sacrifices that they make on our behalf.  Occasionally, that ignorance is rudely interrupted. 

In the belly of my airplane was the casket of of a young pilot who was killed this week on a training mission preliminary to being posted to Iraq. My seatm

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It is likely that your UK holiday home will be locked up and left unoccupied for long periods over the winter. During the ‘empty’ winter period, your holiday property will be exposed to extreme winter weather. The last three winters have been extremely severe in the UK and many unprotected holiday cottages experienced substantial water damage claims caused by burst pipes.

At Schofields, we experienced numerous instances where it could be argued property owners were negligent. For

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It’s no secret that insurance companies are in business to make money, but the lengths some insurance companies go to in order to increase profits is alarming. In fact, dozens of posts on this blog have alerted our readers to the improper actions some insurance companies may take to put profit above their policyholders’ interests.

In a recent article, Insurance Claim Delays Deliver Massive Profits To Industry By Shorting Customers, readers are alerted to some of ways carriers are benefiting and insureds are suffering. Ani

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A New York state judge made it easier for the bond insurer MBIA Inc. to pursue its $1.4 billion lawsuit accusing Bank of America Corp.s Countrywide Financial unit of fraudulently inducing it to insure risky mortgage-backed securities.

New York State Supreme Court Justice Eileen Bransten ruled on Tuesday that to show fraud, MBIA need only show Countrywide misled it about the $20 billion of securities it insured, not that the misrepresentations caused its losses.

MBIA shares closed 8.1 percent higher.

MBIA accused Countrywide of misrepresenting the quality of underwriting for about 368,000 loans backing 15 financings it insured between 2005 and 2007, while the housing market was booming.

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Ken Livingstone’s proposals for rent controls – which could affect landlords property insurance customers – have been criticised by LettingFocus.com founder David Lawrenson.

In a blog on the site, he compared them to similar policies in the 60s and 70s, which were followed by many people, but ignored by others, who asked for ‘side payments’.

Those who obeyed the legislation found they could no longer make a profit from rental accommodation, which resulted in the sector shrinking to represent eight per cent of the UK’s housing in 1988, compared with 50 per cent in 1945.

“It’s not clear how would Ken stop this kind of cheating of a rent control system and how would it be enforced anyway,” the expert stated.

Former London mayor Mr Livingstone had called for a London Living Rent system, with a benchmark of one third of a household’s income to be spent on their tenancy.

In more than 50 per cent of the city’s boroughs, the typical person spends at least half of their income on housing, he pointed out.