Two San Bernardino sisters who sued their insurance coverage firm for failing to pay to restore flood injury on their house are actually $18 million richer after a jury discovered of their favor and imposed emotional and punitive damages on the insurance coverage firm.
The $18-million verdict introduced April 18 by a San Bernardino County jury was a far cry from the $5,000 an insurance coverage adjuster had initially supplied the ladies.
Jennifer Garnier’s and Angela Toft’s house in Piñon Hills was flooded by rainwater in February 2019. Muddy water broken their house, together with the heating and air con ducts. The rainwater additionally broken {the electrical} system of their prefabricated house, in line with their legal professional, Michael Hernandez.
The sisters estimated they wanted greater than $100,000 to repair the injury, however once they filed a declare with their insurance coverage firm, American Dependable, an insurance coverage adjuster as an alternative supplied Garnier and Toft solely $5,000, Hernandez mentioned.
The sisters sued American Dependable in September 2020 for a breach of contract, claiming that the adjuster didn’t conduct a correct inspection of the house. The house was uninhabitable, in line with their lawsuit, however Garnier and Toft continued to dwell there as a result of they didn’t have wherever else to go.
Arizona-based American Dependable and its mum or dad firm, Pennsylvania-based World Indemnity Group, didn’t reply to requests for remark.
However in court docket filings, American Dependable argued that Garnier and Toft repeatedly delayed inspection of their house and, after they filed their lawsuit, they have been sluggish to reply to requests made by the corporate’s authorized crew. The ladies additionally repeatedly requested for all communication from the insurance coverage firm to be made in writing, Hernandez mentioned.
Greater than 4 years after they filed their declare, American Dependable mentioned an oversight was made on their finish and so they supplied the sisters $140,000 in October 2023, just some months earlier than the trial was slated to begin. The corporate defined to Garnier and Toft that they realized concerning the sisters’ dwelling situations whereas deliberating the proof within the trial, Hernandez mentioned.
“We argued that that they had recognized about these situations for a very long time, however they made the choice to pay my purchasers as a result of they knew that they’d be dealing with a jury,” Hernandez mentioned.
Garnier and Toft moved forward with the trial and obtained estimates to restore their house, however postponed repairs till after the trial was over, as a result of they’d be pressured to relocate throughout development, in line with Hernandez.
After a six-week trial, a jury present in favor of the ladies and awarded them every $3 million for emotional damages. They have been awarded $2 million in punitive damages from American Dependable and $10 million in punitive damages from World Indemnity Group, in line with court docket paperwork.
The decision arrives throughout a tumultuous time in California as insurance coverage corporations flee the Golden State, claiming they’re unable to offer insurance coverage to houses below menace of wildfires and different pure disasters.
Whereas climate-change-related legal responsibility protection didn’t overtly issue into Garnier’s and Toft’s case, their house was broken by floodwaters from a Southern California rainstorm. Forecasts present that local weather change will exacerbate flooding in California within the coming years.
In March, State Farm introduced that it will not renew insurance policies for 72,000 property house owners throughout the state, citing excessive inflation, disaster publicity, reinsurance prices and the limitation of decades-old insurance coverage rules as causes for scaling again insurance policies.
The California Division of Insurance coverage introduced a brand new technique in September to streamline the speed approval course of for insurers within the owners, auto and different markets. That course of was final modified in 1988.
