Maryland Law Review Endnotes: An Academic Outlet for Commentary on Pending Cases

By Steve Klepper (Twitter: @MDAppeal)

As regular readers of this blog know, I’m a fan of online companions to law reviews. Here in the state, Maryland Law Review Endnotes is a great outlet for publishing short-form academic-style articles – particularly those about cases drawing a great deal of attention in Maryland appellate courts.

One such case (although not currently listed on the Court of Appeals’ Highlighted Cases page) is People’s Insurance Counsel Division v. State Farm Fire & Casualty Co., Sept. 2014 Term, No. 21, to be argued November 7. I’m aware of at least five amicus briefs. And when you read the first question presented, it is easy to see why. The petition asks: “Should this Court reexamine Maryland common law on construing insurance contracts and, recognizing that such contracts are not the product of equal bargaining, hold that terms contained in an insurance policy must be strictly construed against the insurer?”

When I saw the cert grant earlier this year, I submitted a piece to Endnotes discussing whether PICD v. State Farm properly raises that question. I’m pleased to announce that the piece, Maryland’s Contractual Conception of Insurance: The Improvident Grant of Certiorari in PICD v. State Farm, 74 Md L. Rev. Endnotes 1 (2014), is now online. (A disclosure is now necessary, however: After I submitted the piece to Endnotes, I was retained to submit an amicus brief in support of the respondent. And, as it turns out, another member of the blog’s editorial board, Michael Wein, has authored an amicus brief in support of the petitioner.)

The hope is that articles in Endnotes and other such law-review companions spark healthy online discussion of important pending cases such as PICD v. State Farm. To that end, I encourage the blog’s readers to consider Endnotes for their own submissions.