A clause grouping into one claim every demand arising from a single cause, under one deductible and one limit.
A series clause ties to a single event all the demands flowing from one technical cause, one design defect or one breach, whatever the number of victims and however spread out the demands are in time. Its effect is twofold and cuts both ways: one deductible applies instead of a thousand, which helps the policyholder, but one limit applies too, which can leave them exposed on a series that exceeds the annual cover. It is indispensable in product liability, medical liability and professional indemnity, where a single defect can generate demands for fifteen years. Its drafting is a battleground: the definition of the originating cause, the attachment of the series to the year of the first demand, and the treatment of demands made after cancellation decide by themselves what the real exposure is. The problem solved is the impossibility of treating as a thousand independent losses what flows from a single faulty decision.
The Mediator litigation shows the mechanism at work: the drug was withdrawn from the French market in November 2009 after more than thirty years on sale, and thousands of individual claims spread over more than a decade, the Paris criminal court handing down judgment on March 29, 2021. Tied to a single originating cause, those demands fall under one deductible and one limit.
clause de sinistre en série, fait générateur unique