Category: Class Action

A Berkeley-based home and garden store has filed a lawsuit against its insurance company for not honoring its business interruption coverage. According to a Berkeleyside news report, The Gardener has been located in the Fourth Street shopping district for 36 years. The owner of the store filed the claim against Ohio Security Insurance Company after facing serious financial harm because of the closure of her stores in Berkeley, San Francisco and Healdsburg. Like all retailers, the store was forced to shut down temporarily following the statewide shelter-in-place orders to stop the spread of the coronavirus. …Read the rest »

Farmers Insurance is facing a class action lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court over a business interruption claim the company reportedly denied on the same day it was filed. According to a report in Insurance Business Magazine, a franchise of Northridge-based The Great Frame Up, which is a national chain of framing stores, filed the lawsuit after its business interruption claim was denied over the phone.

The class action alleges that Farmers Insurance is summarily denying any claims for loss of business income made by small businesses as a strategy to dissuade those small businesses from pursuing litigation. The lawsuit also states that this is not the first time the insurer has employed this tactic. Farmers apparently tried to employ the same strategy back in 1994 after the Northridge earthquake.

Denial Without Investigation or Assessment

Under California insurance law, those who are insured are entitled to a “fair and thorough investigation of claims.” But the lawsuit says Farmers chose to deny this claim without even taking a good look at it. The franchise was one of many “non-essential” businesses in the state of California ordered to close on March 19 by the state government in response to the COVID-19 pandemic’s spread. Since the lockdown, the store says it has not made a single sale.

The complaint states the store had purchased a uniform business owner’s policy, which alleged to cover the government lockdown. The franchise also maintains that its policy has an “additional coverages” clause that covers businesses’ incomes should a business suffer losses due to “the necessary suspension of your operations during a period of restoration.”

The franchise reported a claim to Farmers on April 8 over the phone and the insurer immediately denied it. Farmers also sent a written denial to the store the following day. When the store hired an attorney to look into why the claim was denied with any investigation or evaluation, Farmers allegedly refused to cooperate and provided no justification for the denial.

Suing Your Insurer Over a COVID-19 Claim

At Bisnar Chase, our business interruption lawyers believe there are plenty of avenues you can take like filing a COVID-19 business interruption lawsuit if your claim has been denied. Especially when a claim is denied instantaneously, it raises a red flag, telling you that your insurance company tossed it out without doing their due diligence in investigating it.

As a law firm that has fought insurance companies on behalf of injured clients, we know the game insurers play. We know they’ll attempt to deny claims and lowball claimants. They make their profits by paying out as little as possible. We believe that business owners should be supported and lifted up during these tough economic times. No company should be forced out of business because of unpredictable and uncontrollable circumstances. Contact our COVID-19 business interruption claim lawyers for more information about pursuing your rights.

Source: https://www.insurancebusinessmag.com/us/news/breaking-news/farmers-insurance-denies-business-interruption-claim-the-same-day-it-was-filed-faces-lawsuit-223955.aspx

Two federal class action lawsuits have been filed on behalf of hundreds of ADT customers who recently learned that their accounts with the home security company were compromised by a former employee. According to a Dallas Morning News report, the lawsuits came weeks after ADT alerted hundreds of its customers in the Dallas-Fort Worth area that a former employee had unauthorized access to their security systems over the last several years including video streams of in-home cameras. …Read the rest »

A California church has filed a class action lawsuit against Zoom after a recent Bible study class was “Zoombombed” with pornographic images. According to a USA Today news report, St. Paulus Lutheran Church, one of San Francisco’s oldest churches, filed a proposed class action lawsuit against the teleconferencing giant whose platform is being used by millions during the coronavirus quarantine. …Read the rest »

Lawsuits have been filed against several insurance companies around the country for denying policy claims the plaintiffs had made to protect against business interruption losses due to COVID-19. According to news reports, these are claims specifically pertaining to the business closures that were mandated in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. …Read the rest »

Amazon, Wal-Mart, Costco and other major supermarket chains have been named in a class action lawsuit over an alleged scheme to gouge California consumers on the price of eggs, which has tripled in the state during the coronavirus pandemic. According to Bloomberg news report, the lawsuit, which was filed in San Francisco federal court, says the corporations are seeking to profit from the misery of millions of Californians. …Read the rest »

Two consumers are suing Amazon over alleged price gouging on the platform. According to a news report, a federal lawsuit has been filed on behalf of two consumers – Mary McQueen of Oakland, and Victoria Ballinger of Selma, California. Both women say they relied on Amazon when the coronavirus pandemic began for goods they could not safely get in brick-and-mortar stores. However, they were confronted with inflated prices set by the online retailer. …Read the rest »

A class action lawsuit filed this week on behalf of more than 1,000 Celebrity Cruises employees alleges that the company failed to protect its crew working on ships amid the novel coronavirus outbreak. According to an ABC news report, this lawsuit comes less than two weeks after a crewmember working on the Celebrity Infinity died after being medically evacuated by the U.S. Coast Guard, which later confirmed that the employee displayed coronavirus-like symptoms. …Read the rest »

Ticket vendors are being criticized for their handling of thousands of live events that were called off as postponements on which some do not offer refunds. According to a report in The New York Times, fans are fuming about being unable to get refunds for concerts or sporting events that have been canceled or postponed without any rescheduled dates. Consumers view ticketing outlets as being greedy at a time of a horrible crisis, the coronavirus pandemic, saying they are holding billions of dollars in consumers’ cash, which people now desperately need for essentials. …Read the rest »

Costa Cruises, a subsidiary of Carnival Cruise Lines, is facing a proposed class action lawsuit alleging that the company neglected to inform passengers on the Costa Luminosa about potential coronavirus exposure and failed to take the necessary precautions to protect passengers. According to a USA Today article, lawyers allege that passengers “were dragged across the Atlantic in a ticking coronavirus time bomb which to date has resulted in at least seven deaths.” …Read the rest »