Homeowner Insurance And Leak Detection

“No harm, no foul” legal concept worth preserving

The legal concept of “no harm, no foul” is worth preserving. Privacy laws and other statutes enable consumers to sue companies without claiming actual injury. That only encourages dubious claims against corporate America and upends constitutional logic. The U.S. Supreme Court gets a chance on Monday to start coming to the same conclusion.

The case involves a homeowner suing an insurance company, but the issue arises in dozens of contexts. Infringing copyrights, secretly tracking website visits or making prerecorded calls to cell phones can all prompt lawsuits, even without inflicting any obvious damage. That’s because a law prohibiting the behavior also creates a right to sue.

This seeming windfall for undamaged “victims” may help deter wrongdoing. But it flies in the face of the U.S. Constitution’s implicit requirement that litigants have, in effect, skin in the game and suffer a loss. Plenty of courts agree, especially in the privacy area.

In 2005, for example, a federal court said JetBlue passengers couldn’t sue the airline for violating its own privacy policy by passing their names to the U.S. government – because they couldn’t prove any damage. Suits against Disney, Microsoft and McDonald’s for snooping around websites with electronic cookies failed for similar reasons. And earlier this month, LinkedIn customers lost a challenge against the company for leaking their user IDs, again because they couldn’t satisfy the loss test.

In the case now before the high court, however, a homeowner was allowed to file a class-action suit against her title insurer for allegedly paying kickbacks to get business. She didn’t complain about high prices or bad service but merely the violation of her right to a graft-free transaction.

Real injuries can be hard to detect. Illegal payoffs may create conflicts of interest that skew deals in hidden ways. Allowing suits without clear damages, however, also invites the infliction of serious and undue harm.

Remove or Replace Your Aging Old Furnace Oil Tank before its Too ...

Have tanks that are reaching the end of their 20- to 30-year life span, insurance industry estimates show.

Oil tanks aged over 20 years are deemed a risk by many insurance companies and most insurers won’t provide insurance protection unless homeowners replace the oil tanks or switch to another heating source and have the old oil tanks removed , check out www.ecometalrecycling.ca .

Fuel oil heats more than 30 million homes in North America. Some of the tanks date back to the 1930′s when they replaced coal as a common source of heat. Most of the tanks, however, were installed during the building booms of the 1960′s and 1970′s.

As the tanks age, the likelihood of tank deterioration increases, and insurance companies today are insisting on a thorough inspection before they provide coverage.

A pinhole leak can spill 750 litres of oil in eight hours. Cleanup costs range from $5,000 to $150,000 and may require replacement of a home’s entire foundation. It costs from $700 to $1,500 to replace an oil tank.

The most important thing is, homeowners should check the age of their oil tanks immediately and contact their fuel oil provider if they are more than 20 years old. Leaving an old unused Home Heating Oil Tank in your home or business is not only a waste of valuable space and a potential health hazard , but moreover your home insurer may decide to no longer insure your home . Leaking, over filling or spilling of oil tanks are threats to human health and safety if not detected or removed on time. Hire a professional oil tank removal company such as EcoMetalRecycling.

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