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October 26, 2026
SAN FRANCISCO — Following recent amendments to the Healthy Airport Ordinance (HAO) that the city and county of San Francisco had enacted in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic, a trade group’s lawsuit challenging the ordinance was dismissed without prejudice pursuant to a settlement agreement.
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October 26, 2026
PASADENA, Calif. — The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed a district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of a property insurer on an insured’s breach of contract and bad faith claims, agreeing with the lower court that the claims cannot proceed because the insured failed to cooperate with the insurer’s requests during the investigation of the insured’s fire damage claim.
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October 23, 2026
SANTA ANA, Calif. — Finding that a claim for short-term disability (STD) benefits under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act accrued only upon the plaintiff’s receipt of the final denial that ended his administrative appeal — and so falls outside the scope of a settlement agreement — a California federal judge issued a minute in-chambers order granting summary judgment for the claimant on the STD plan’s affirmative defense of release.
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October 23, 2026
RIVERSIDE, Calif. — A California federal judge denied a plumbing subcontractor’s insurer’s motion for summary judgment in an equitable contribution action brought by a builder’s insurer, which defended the builder against airplane hangar construction defect claims and seeks contribution on the grounds that the builder was an additional insured under the plumbing subcontractor’s policy.
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October 23, 2026
SAN JOSE, Calif. — Following a jury trial and issuance of a mixed judgment in the challenge to termination of long-term disability (LTD) benefits for a counseling psychologist whose diagnoses include postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos syndrome and fibromyalgia, a California federal magistrate judge denied the insurer’s motion to seal material he described as related to “internal governance and employees” that was “presented on the record at the trial.”
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October 23, 2026
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A California federal magistrate judge granted summary judgment in favor of an insurer on breach of contract and bad faith claims after determining that the insurer was justified in denying a house fire claim because no reasonable jury could find that homeowners did not knowingly misrepresent their losses.
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October 22, 2026
SAN DIEGO — Issuing an unpublished order entering judgment against a claimant who challenged denial of her claim for partial disability benefits under a long-term disability (LTD) plan, a California federal judge said in part that the “safe harbor” regulation that exempts some programs from the Employee Retirement Income Security Act doesn’t apply because of the endorsement and consideration facts here.
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October 20, 2026
SAN FRANCISCO — A California federal magistrate judge dismissed with prejudice an insured’s claims against an insurer for breach of contract, bad faith and declaratory relief following the parties’ settlement of a dispute over insurance coverage for underlying suits related to exposure to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) allegedly contained in aqueous film-forming foam (AFFF) that was manufactured and sold by the insured.
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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.