Alabama Auto Insurance & Crash Law Case Authority Library

Coverage and UM/UIM authorities

Herrera supplies Alabama's clear-policy/ambiguity framework. Section 32-7-23 governs UM/UIM inclusion, rejection, underinsured status and the intra-contract stacking cap. Travelers v. Jones applies insured status and stacking within one contract. Lambert supplies the UIM settlement/subrogation procedure. Use each authority for the proposition it actually decides rather than turning it into a broad insurance slogan.

Bad faith, defense and settlement authorities

Dutton/Brechbill define Alabama's first-party bad-faith framework and the importance of a reasonably legitimate/debatable denial basis. Tanner addresses the broader duty to defend and the role of complaint plus admissible facts. Waters addresses negligent/bad-faith failure to settle and excess exposure. These are distinct insurer duties arising from different relationships and should not be collapsed into one cause of action.

Crash liability, evidence and fatal-claim authorities

Burns v. Moore captures the contributory-negligence/wantonness distinction. Vesta Fire/Hartung guide spoliation sanctions. Section 6-2-38 supplies the ordinary two-year limitation framework while municipal claims have separate notice. Section 6-5-410 and Springhill Hospitals reflect Alabama's punitive-only wrongful-death system; § 6-5-462 supplies the restrictive survival rule. These Alabama-specific doctrines are where generic multistate templates most often fail.

Use the authority library proposition by proposition

Open the statute or opinion and verify the exact text, factual setting, holding, date and disposition supporting the proposed rule. Distinguish statute from case interpretation, holding from dicta and old law from later amendments. Before using an opinion in a live matter, perform subsequent-history/citator review. The Registry deliberately records what an authority establishes and what it does not establish to prevent overstatement.

Closing guidance

Use Alabama's authority library as a research map, then read the controlling source and apply it to the accident-date policy and facts. The state's contributory-negligence, UIM, bad-faith, wrongful-death and survival rules are especially resistant to generic national summaries.