Kansas Supreme Court News

Kansas High Court Reverses $3.4M Bad Faith Judgment Against Insurer

An insurer’s duty to act in good faith and with reasonable care does not necessarily include a requirement to begin settlement negotiations before a claim is filed, the Kansas Supreme Court ruled. The high court affirmed a panel decision by …

Kansas Court: More Fact-Finding Required in Air Ambulance Case

Federal law may prohibit states from regulating prices charged to insurers by air ambulance providers, but that doesn’t absolve the Workers’ Compensation Board of its responsibility to determine whether the billed charges are “usual and customary,” a split Kansas Supreme …

Kansas High Court Ruling Keeps Law Allowing COVID Lawsuits Alive

Kansas’ highest court on Jan. 7 kept intact a law that allows people to sue counties over mask mandates and other COVID-19 restrictions and obtain quick trial-court decisions. The Kansas Supreme Court declined to consider whether a law requiring trial-court …

Kansas Supreme Court Upholds Law Barring ‘Wrongful Birth’ Suits

Kansas’ highest court on April 30 upheld a law barring so-called wrongful birth lawsuits against doctors, in a case in which a couple sued because they weren’t told of serious fetal defects until after an abortion could have been obtained. …

Kansas Supreme Court Backs Workers’ Compensation Law

The Kansas Supreme Court has upheld a state law that governs how much money workers who are injured on the job can collect. The court ruled that an amendment to the Kansas Workers’ Compensation Act was constitutional because it did …

Kansas Supreme Court Weighs Guidelines for Compensating Injured Workers

The Kansas Supreme Court has waded into the fray over obscure medical guidelines that will determine how much money workers injured on the job can collect. Justices on Sept. 17 heard legal arguments on Zoom over which edition of the …

Constitutionality of ‘Wrongful Birth’ Law Gets Kansas Supreme Court Hearing

The Kansas Supreme Court seemed worried on Sept. 16 about the proper roles of the Legislature and courts as it wrestled with whether a state statute that prohibits lawsuits based on “wrongful birth” claims is constitutional. Justices heard oral arguments …

Kansas Supreme Court Throws Out Personal Injury Damages Cap

The Kansas Supreme Court on Friday ruled that the state’s cap on damages for noneconomic injuries in personal injury lawsuits is unconstitutional. The court ruled 4-2 that capping damages an injured person is able to recover in a lawsuit violates …

Kansas Supreme Court: Bars Can’t Be Sued by Drunken Driving Victims

The Kansas Supreme Court has upheld a 34-year-old rule that prohibits victims injured by drunken drivers from suing the bars that served them. The high court’s ruling on May 10 came in the case of Jeff Kudlacik, who was placed …

Kansas High Court: Insurer Must Cover Student Injured in Crash

The Kansas Supreme Court has ruled that an insurance company should cover a student who was in a private vehicle when he was injured in a crash on the way to a soccer match. The ruling stems from a 2006 …