$7M VERDICT REACHED

A jury awarded almost $7,000,000 in earthquake repair costs and bad faith damages on June 15 to a Culver City condominium homeowners association in a lawsuit against Scottsdale Insurance Company. According to the Los Angeles law firm of Quisenberry & Kabateck LLP, this was the first trial and first jury verdict for earthquake insurance benefits under the new law, SB 1899. The legislation was enacted to extend the statute of limitations for claims brought by policyholders for damage resulting from the 1994 Northridge earthquake. In this case, the Tara Hill homeowners alleged that their insurer, Scottsdale Insurance Company, deliberately misled them in first advising them they had suffered no earthquake damage at all, and then lowballing and underestimating the damage once the homeowners renewed their claim under the new legislation. After a five-week trial, the jury returned a verdict of $5,200,000 as the cost of repairing the earthquake damage and $2,000,000 in damages due to Scottsdale’s bad-faith handling of the claim.