PART ONE.
"There's considerable disagreement among sociologists as to what the consequences of raising a child in a single-sex family, whether that is harmful to the child or not."
Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, quoted during oral argument at the United States Supreme Court in the case of Hollingsworth v. Perry/United States v. Edith Schlain Windsor.
No, there isn't:
"SCHOLARLY CONSENSUS IS CLEAR: CHILDREN OF SAME-SEX PARENTS FARE JUST AS WELL AS CHILDREN OF OPPOSITE-SEX PARENTS."
Amicus Brief of the American Sociological Association, reproduced here from the first page of their Brief in the original all-caps typeface and font, filed in the United States Supreme Court in the case of Hollingsworth v. Perry/United States v. Edith Schlain Windsor.
The author is an insurance coverage lawyer who for thirty-five years has read and listened to Judges and lawyers and their legal opinions. I have seen legal opinions which have been reached only by ignoring or even contradicting the proven facts. In many of those instances the legal opinions naturally enough concerned insurance coverage.
Judges often provide examples of this procedure. For example, "all risks" property insurance policies contain a broad coverage agreement followed by many exclusions. When guiding a client or a Court through the provisions of an all-risk policy, it is critical for insurance coverage lawyers to advise that the list of excluded causes of loss in an all-risk property policy guides the determination of coverage, whether for damage incurred during a catastrophic event like Katrina or Sandy, or in a fire or sinkhole collapse.
The effect of this framework is to place the burden of proving an exclusion on the property insurance company after the policyholder meets the considerably lesser burden of proving coverage in the first place. Still, some Courts occasionally twist the applicable burdens of proof to require an all-risk property insurance policyholder to prove that exclusions do not apply to the claim. In such cases, the Courts involved do not quote the insuring agreement in the actual policy in front of them, and they cannot quote it to support a legal opinion that the policyholder under such a policy (or under any policy, for that matter) must prove that exclusions do not apply. There is no such language written in the standard actual all-risks policy. See Dennis J. Wall, § 7:1, "Introduction and Interpretation," in JOHN K. DiMUGNO, STEVEN PLITT & DENNIS J. WALL, et al., CATClaims: Insurance Coverage for Natural and Man-Made Disasters (West November 2012 ed.).
Another example of legal opinions that are not supported or are even contradicted by the actual facts, is provided by Courts which hold that a policyholder claiming a covered loss must prove that the loss was "fortuitous"-- even though the policy of insurance is not written to require it. Every claimed insurance loss must be accidental and not intentional; that has been a no-brainer as it were for a very long time. So, it is nothing new for policyholders to prove that their insurance claim is not for a loss that they intentionally caused, lest insurance pay not for a loss but for a crime or the equivalent.
What is new is for Courts to require that property insurance claimants meet some legal burden of proof, selected and shaped only by the Courts involved, that "all risks" means "fortuitous loss" -- even though the insurance policy does not say anything of the kind. See Dennis J. Wall, § 7:4, "'Fortuitous,'" in JOHN K. DiMUGNO, STEVEN PLITT & DENNIS J. WALL, et al., CATClaims: Insurance Coverage for Natural and Man-Made Disasters (West November 2012 ed.).
To be continued .....
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