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An insured’s obligation to give an Examinations Under Oath in conjunction with an insurance claim has been around a long time. Take for example the case of Claflin v. Commonwealth Ins. Co., 110 U.S. 81, 3 S. Ct. 507, 28 L. Ed. 76 (1884). There, the U.S. Supreme Court explained that the purpose behind an Examination Under Oath was “to enable the [insurance] company to possess itself of all knowledge and all information as to other sources and means of knowledge, in regard to the facts, material to their rights, to enable them to decide upon their obligations, and to protect them against false claims.” Id. 110 U.S. 94-95. In fact, a number of cases have straight out said that Examinations Under Oath are meant at least in part to detect fraud. Cruz v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 466 Mich. 588, 605, 648 N.E.2d 591, 599 (2002) (Kelly, J., dissenting) and Gordon v. St. Paul Fire & Marine Ins. Co., 197 Mich. 226, 230, 163 N.W. 956, 957 (1917).
I know that Nevada is not immune from false claims. Over my years of practice, I’ve handled a number of cases where the evidence in support of the claim did not appear to be on the up-and-up. I’ve taken many Examinations Under Oath over the years. Plus there some states with a multitude of precedent setting EUO cases.
So one would think that there would be some legal precedent coming out of at least one Nevada court that would give further enlightenment on what Nevada’s position might be on the law related to Examinations Under Oath. However, after an extensive search, I have not found even one reported case from either the Nevada Supreme Court or the U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada on this topic.
Perhaps one of the reasons why there are no Nevada precedents on EUOs is because Nevada has no intermediate court of appeals. With only one state appeals court, there are a number of areas of law where there is no Nevada precedent at all.
So if you run across any Nevada EUO precedents, please forward the opinions or citations to mike@mcmillslaw.com. If you have questions about Examinations Under Oath in Nevada, please give us a call. We’d be happy to answer your questions and give you our best educated guess on what the Nevada Supreme Court might do with this topic.
