DISCLAIMER: Any unofficial case summaries below are prepared by the clerk's office
as a courtesy to the reader. They are not part of the opinion of the court.
141192P.pdf 11/17/2014 Hot Stuff Foods, LLC v. Houston Casualty Company
U.S. Court of Appeals Case No: 14-1192
and No: 14-1194
U.S. District Court for the District of South Dakota - Sioux Falls
[PUBLISHED] [Loken, Author, with Riley, Chief Judge, and Kelly, Circuit
Judge]
Civil case - Insurance. Where the plaintiff manufacturer voluntarily
recalled some of its sandwich products because their labeling failed to
disclose the presence of MSG, the manufacturer bore the burden under the
insurance policy in question of proving that consuming the mislabeled
sandwiches may likely result in physical symptoms of bodily injury,
sickness or disease, and on the record before it, the district court erred
in granting partial summary judgment for the manufacturer on the coverage
issue; on remand, unless the district court determines that summary
judgment is appropriate on the full trial record, the coverage issue must
be submitted to a jury; the district court did not err in denying the
insurer's motion for judgment as a matter of law on the manufacturer's
claim for lost profits; there was no clear error in denying the
manufacturer's request for an award of attorney's fees under South Dakota
Codified Law Section 58-12-3 which allows recovery of attorneys' fees in
cases where the insurer has vexatiously or without reasonable cause
refused to pay the full amount of the loss.