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October 19, 2026
BAKERSFIELD, Calif. — A reinsurance broker has moved to dismiss claims brought against it by a health care system in a dispute over more than $7.6 million in denied excess-of-loss reinsurance claims, arguing that the parties’ claims service agreement precludes contractual liability and that the remaining claims are legally deficient or duplicative.
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October 16, 2026
LOS ANGELES — A California federal judge dismissed without prejudice an insured’s request for punitive damages in a coverage dispute stemming from vandalism of the insured’s property after determining that the insured failed to plausibly allege that the actions of the insurer’s agent are imputed to the insurer.
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October 14, 2026
SAN JOSE, Calif. — Granting a motion for partial reconsideration, a California federal magistrate judge awarded a former software engineer benefits under a voluntary short-term disability (STD) plan upon determining that the plan was subject to the Employee Retirement Income Security Act.
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October 14, 2026
SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge in California granted an employment practices liability (EPL) insurer’s motion for summary judgment in a lawsuit seeking coverage for underlying sexual harassment claims brought by a former employee of a Taco Bell that was owned and operated by the insureds, holding that the insureds failed to timely report the underlying claim and, therefore, no EPL coverage was triggered.
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October 13, 2026
LOS ANGELES — A California federal judge denied a motion to dismiss or stay a lawsuit pending resolution of a parallel action in Georgia state court after determining that a stay or dismissal is not warranted because it is not clear that all of the issues in the California federal suit related to various insurers’ duty to defend an insured in underlying silica bodily injury suits will be resolved in the Georgia suit.
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October 08, 2026
LOS ANGELES — Insureds sued their homeowners insurer for breach of contract, breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing and violation of the California unfair competition law (UCL), alleging that the insurer, in concert with environmental consulting and testing companies, directed an investigation into their Palisades Wildfire claim “that repeatedly narrowed the scope of testing, ignored evidence of contamination in concealed and exterior areas, and proposed piecemeal remediation that could not restore the Property to its pre-loss condition.”
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October 07, 2026
LOS ANGELES — A California appeals panel affirmed a lower court’s summary judgment ruling in favor of a homeowners insurer on claims for breach of contract, breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, intentional infliction of emotional distress (IIED) and fraud in a lawsuit seeking coverage for property damage following a 2019 rainstorm, holding that the insurer has satisfied its burden of establishing noncoverage warranting summary judgment even if there is a triable question as to the efficient proximate cause of the insureds’ loss.
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October 07, 2026
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A California federal judge denied dismissal motions in a relator’s qui tam suit alleging violations of the False Claims Act (FCA) against physicians and a pain clinic for the purported submission of false claims to the government for reimbursement payments for Medicare urine drug tests, finding in part that the government sufficiently alleged inadequate documentation of medical necessity for the testing.
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September 30, 2026
LOS ANGELES — Declining to overturn termination of long-term disability (LTD) benefits in a case that involved conditions ranging from depression to postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), a California federal judge said the claimant failed to “connect the dots, so to speak, between any diagnoses and actual functional limitations that rendered her” disabled from her occupation as an attorney.
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September 29, 2026
LOS ANGELES — An insurer filed a notice of appeal on Sept. 28 to the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals following a California federal judge’s ruling that a pollution exclusion does not relieve the insurer of its duty to defend its insured against an underlying personal injury suit stemming from a claimant’s exposure to hydrogen sulfide gas.
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September 25, 2026
SAN FRANCISCO — The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Sept. 24 affirmed a district court’s ruling that a pollution liability insurer has no duty to defend its insured against underlying suits stemming from the insured’s environmental remediation work, agreeing with the lower court that the pollution conditions at issue were not unexpected or unintended as required by the policies.
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September 25, 2026
BAKERSFIELD, Calif. — A health plan sued its former reinsurance broker and excess-of-loss reinsurer in a California federal court, alleging that the broker improperly characterized more than $7.6 million in long-term acute care (LTAC) claims as noncovered rehabilitation services and that the reinsurer relied on those representations to deny coverage under the 2024 policy.
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September 25, 2026
LOS ANGELES — A limited liability company has appealed to the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals a federal judge in California’s rulings that disposed of its bad faith and related claims against its insurer and limited its recovery of prejudgment interest in a dispute over coverage for water damage to an apartment building.
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September 24, 2026
SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge in California granted an insurer’s motion seeking prejudgment interest after granting the insurer’s motion for summary judgment in its case against a concrete supplier seeking a declaration that it did not have a duty to indemnify the supplier in an underlying action over defective concrete.
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September 23, 2026
SAN FRANCISCO — An insurer filed an answering brief in the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, asking it to affirm a federal judge in California’s ruling that the insurer had no duty to defend or indemnify an additional insured for the amount the additional insured paid to resolve a third party’s presuit claims, arguing that the policies required that a suit be filed against the additional insured for those duties to be triggered.
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September 22, 2026
LOS ANGELES — An insurer filed a motion for reconsideration in California federal court, arguing that reconsideration of the denial of the insurer’s motion for certification of interlocutory appeal is warranted based on another California federal judge’s recent decisions certifying interlocutory appeals in similar silica exposure coverage suits.
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September 22, 2026
LOS ANGELES — Insureds who owned, operated and managed an apartment complex are not entitled to a defense or indemnity for an underlying wrongful death suit stemming from a tenant’s death caused by exposure to mold and mold spores in a rental apartment because the policies’ fungi or bacteria exclusions and pollution exclusions bar coverage, the insurers say in a California state court complaint.
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September 22, 2026
LOS ANGELES — A California federal judge determined that breach of contract and bad faith claims alleged against the parent company of an insurer can proceed in a wildfire coverage damage suit because the insureds alleged sufficient facts to show that the insurer and its parent company share a unity of interest and ownership.
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September 22, 2026
SAN JOSE, Calif. — An assignee notified a California federal court that he is appealing the court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of a business and management liability insurer on his claims for breach of contract, bad faith and punitive damages in a directors and officers liability coverage dispute over an underlying lawsuit alleging breaches of fiduciary duties against the insured’s directors.
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September 17, 2026
OAKLAND, Calif. — After upholding denial of the long-term disability (LTD) the claim of an account executive who argued that conditions including tinnitus and anxiety rendered him disabled, a California federal judge entered judgment against the claimant on Sept. 16; reviewing the denial de novo, the judge said in part that it rested on the claimant’s “failure to demonstrate that the diagnoses resulted in a disability that prevented him from working in his Own Occupation.”
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September 16, 2026
PASADENA, Calif.— The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed a lower federal court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of an insurer in an insured’s breach of contract, bad faith, unfair competition and declaratory relief lawsuit, holding that the insurer has no duty to defend against an underlying negligence lawsuit arising from sexual assault and harassment because it was brought after the policy’s coverage and extended reporting periods expired.
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September 16, 2026
LOS ANGELES — A California state judge granted summary judgment to a school district risk pool and rejected a reinsurer’s attempt to avoid coverage liability for sexual abuse that occurred outside an agreed coverage period, holding that the governing agreements treat multiple victims of the same perpetrator as part of a single “‘occurrence’” arising at the time of the first abuse, despite the reinsurer’s arguments that each victim constituted a separate “‘occurrence’” and that the later abuse fell outside the policy period.
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September 14, 2026
SAN FRANCISCO — A California federal judge granted an unopposed motion to vacate court filings and hearings following the primary insurers’ settlement with their insured in a coverage dispute stemming from the seizure of the insured’s crude oil tanker by Iranian military forces.
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September 10, 2026
SAN JOSE, Calif.— A federal judge in California granted a write-your-own (WYO) insurer’s motion to dismiss insureds’ second amended complaint seeking $12,500 in additional coverage for their alleged “structural damage” arising from a 2023 flood, holding that dismissal was proper under the insureds’ Standard Flood Insurance Policy (SFIP) because the lawsuit was filed more than a year after the claim was denied.
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September 09, 2026
LOS ANGELES — A commercial general liability (CGL) insurer filed a complaint in California federal court seeking to rescind a CGL policy issued to a company operating an apartment building, asserting that the company made material misrepresentations in the policy application regarding the absence of fire or safety code violations and loss history.