Rain on the roof—and inside the house Esperanza Garcia owned property in Miami-Dade County. The property was insured under a homeowners policy issued by People’s Trust Insurance Company that included a preferred contractor endorsement. Under the endorsement, Garcia agreed that in the event of a covered loss, People’s Trust could, at its option, repair the property. The endorsement’s appraisal provision stated that where People’s Trust elected to repair the property, “[i]f [Garcia] and
Court Decisions
Stay in your own lane Shortly before 6:00 p.m. on November 5, 2014, Mercedes Brown was driving her 2003 Dodge Intrepid and carrying two passengers. They had just shopped at Advance Auto Parts on Winnsboro Road and were leaving to go to Brown’s mother’s house about five blocks west. This entailed making a left turn out of the Advance Auto Parts parking lot and onto Winnsboro Road, a four-lane, east-west
Anybody home? In 2016, Penny Perlmutter sued her homeowners insurer, Olympus Insurance Company, regarding a claim she had filed under her policy. During the lawsuit, Olympus filed a request for its consulting experts to enter Perlmutter’s land to inspect her property. Days before trial and facing court-ordered deadlines to do so, Perlmutter had failed to schedule the inspection. As a result of this failure and other discovery violations, Olympus sought
Cancellation conflict In March 2014, Michael Brown purchased a motorcycle insurance policy for his Suzuki motorcycle from American Standard Insurance Comp-any of Wisconsin. On August 5, 2014, American Standard mailed a notice to Brown that it was cancelling the policy effective August 20, 2014. The stated reason for cancellation was “DOES NOT HAVE A VALID DRIVER’S LICENSE.” Brown did not contest that he received the notice of cancellation and that,
No two ways about it In February 2016, Samuel Doneson was injured in an automobile accident. He incurred approximately $22,000 in medical expenses, a portion of which was paid by workers compensation insurance. He recovered $15,000 from an at-fault third party and was required by law to reimburse the workers compensation insurer in the amount of $8,750. At the time of the accident, Doneson was an insured under an automobile
