The San Francisco Insurance and Class Action groups recently collaborated to defeat class certification in a high-profile, high-stakes class action arising out of the devastating California wildfires.
Plaintiffs’ counsel brought the case against one of the largest insurers in California, on behalf of an alleged class of over 600,000 insureds, many of whom had lost their homes in wildfires. Relying in part on a critical Department of Insurance report, and with a former DOI Commissioner as their expert, plaintiffs claimed that the insurer failed to properly estimate homeowners’ replacement cost limits and misled insureds as to the adequacy of their limits and the processes used to set those limits. As a result, they claimed, hundreds of thousands of homeowners were left greatly underinsured.
There was credible exposure in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
San Francisco Insurance Partner Matt Foy brought to bear his deep knowledge of homeowners insurance and his experience defending against underinsurance claims. San Francisco Class Action Partner Fletcher Alford led the class certification opposition strategy, took and defended the depositions, and briefed and argued class certification. San Francisco Partner Kevin Liu fought a number of tough discovery battles and was instrumental in getting a handle on the huge volume of documents and helping prepare for the depositions. Hartford Partner Greil Roberts led the front in working with our experts. Ace paralegal Colin Mackenzie did a great job managing the documents and the technology.
After a series of extremely contentious depositions — including one in which class counsel blurted out, “It doesn’t matter what [the plaintiff] wants!” — and extended briefing and oral argument, the San Francisco Superior Court issued a 32-page order adopting virtually all of the Gordon & Rees team’s arguments, denying class certification and casting serious doubt on the merits of the claims.