JUDGMENT: $15 Million – CRHH obtains judgment of approximately $15 million in SFSC jury trial. The judgment was upheld on appeal in April 2021.
Tim Harris and Steve Soskin secured a 12-0 verdict of over $7million for client Fireman’s Fund Ins. Co., against Triton, Subs, Inc., and three guarantors insured by Travelers Ins. The San Francisco Superior court trial started May 20, 2019, and the verdict was returned on June 13, after less than 4 hours of deliberation. Post-trial motions added over $1 million in prevailing party attorney’s fees, $256,000 in expert fees pursuant to C.C.P. §998(b), and over $3 million in interest. Experts established that PVC insulation damaged during a commercial installation in 2003, had carbonized and then ignited in 2007, causing a fire that destroyed commercial structures.
(Fireman’s Fund Ins. Co. v. Triton Subs, Inc., et al, CGC15-544547)
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Jury Trial Victory Defeats Claim Linking Autism with Pesticide
The Firm recently won a landmark jury trial involving pesticides and autism. The plaintiff, a 13 year old boy, through his mother as guardian ad litem, claimed “brain damage” from his mother’s alleged inhalation exposure to an organophosphate pesticide (Dursban) while pregnant. Plaintiff asked the jury to award $20 million in damages. Over two years before the pregnancy, our client, Andy’s Termite & Pest Control, had applied the Dursban in the family’s basement soil to control subterranean termites. The trial lasted 3-months, but the jury took only 4 days to render a defense verdict in favor of our client on all 14 theories of liability.
Five years earlier, the Firm got the same case dismissed without a trial, when another judge ruled that plaintiff’s expert testimony based on rat experiments was inadmissible “junk science” that could not possibly show a causal link between autism and the alleged exposure. However, the Court of Appeals reversed, holding that the jury, not a judge, should decide what weight to give to animal studies. See Roberti v. Andy’s Termite & Pest Control (2003) 113 Cal.App.4th 893. That appellate decision, and this jury trial, have been closely watched by the legal community, as pesticides and autism remain subjects of great public interest.
Read MoreJury Trial Victory In Rescission/Bad Faith Suit
Jeffrey Charlston secured a significant victory for firm clients United States Fidelity & Guaranty Company (“USF&G”) and American Specialty Insurance & Risk Services (“American Specialty”) after a month long jury trial in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California.
In United States Fidelity & Guaranty Company v. Lee Investments, LLC, the firm prosecuted a declaratory relief action for rescission of an insurance policy issued by USF&G to a Fresno water park, and defended bad faith and related claims brought by the entity owning the water park, and its broker, Aon. The jury entered unanimous verdicts in favor of USF&G on all of its affirmative claims, and unanimous verdicts against the water park and Aon on all of their claims against USF&G and American Specialty.
Based on the jury findings, the trial court has ordered restitution in favor of USF&G in excess of $1,000,000. The Judgment was affirmed by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in 2011 and a petition for writ of certiorari was denied by the United States Supreme Court.
United States Fidelity & Guaranty Company v. Lee Investments, LLC, 641 F.3d 1126 ( 9th Cir ), cert. denied, 132 S. Ct. 577 (2011).
Read MoreTrial Victory in Equitable Contribution Claim Among Insurers
Please click here to download the opinion (PDF).
Read MoreArbitration Award for Insurer Against Managing General Agent for Breach of Agency Agreement
The Firm secured an award for client Great Divide Insurance Company in an arbitration against Monarch Management Corporation, a managing general agent for Great Divide under an agency agreement. Great Divide demanded arbitration because of the omission of an abuse and molestation exclusion in breach of the underwriting guidelines under which Monarch was authorized to issue policies in Great Divide’s name. After a policy was issued without the exclusion, Great Divide was forced to defend an insured in a sexual molestation case and ultimately settled the matter just before trial. After a four-day arbitration before a panel headed by a retired Judge of the California Court of Appeals, and the testimony of ten witnesses and three experts, Great Divide was awarded all of the costs of defense and settlement, plus prejudgment interest, totaling over $450,000.
Read MoreComplex Two-Week Bad Faith Bench Trial
The Firm just completed a two week bench trial defending an unusually complex bad faith action based on denial of coverage in a legal malpractice action. The legal malpractice action arose from the insured law firm’s defense of a rental car company in an underlying action involving multiple deaths and quadriplegics. Thus the recent bad faith trial involved the merits of three cases rolled into one, “a case within a case within a case”.
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