by Edwd » Sun Nov 02, 2014 06:37 pm
Recently I sued a landlord in California Superior Court and won. There was originally an agreement that I pay for repair and remodeling of an apartment situated on the landlord's own residential property. After I completed the agreed to repairs the landlord reneged and lots of problems ensued. The landlord wound up breaking just about every landlord-tenant law in the book and I sued for no less than 16 causes of action. There were some habitability issues including breach of implied warranty of habitability. Even after the repairs the place was flooded due to structural defect in the building which the landlord lied about and refused to address, but I had very minimal property damage to my belongings. However, there was also negligence, breach of contract, breach of implied covenant of quiet enjoyment, and numerous intentional tortious acts by the landlord including fraud, retaliatory acts, intentional infliction of emotional distress, invasion of privacy, private nuisance, use of unlawful conduct to influence a tenant to vacate, and in the end the landlord wrongfully evicted me because I reported the flooding to the department of environmental health. The landlord's homeowner's insurance policy covered the landlord for Personal Liability $100,000, Damage to Property of Others $500, and Medical Payments to Others $5,000. In California insurance usually doesn't cover intentional acts and the landlord's policy stated that there was NO coverage for Personal Injury (for liability to others caused by certain acts of libel, slander, invasion of privacy, false arrest). What started as $2,000 I put into fixing the apartment turned into a $25,000 settlement due primarily to the landlord's really nasty intentional acts which the landlord's homeowner's insurance paid for. (1) Why did the insurance company pay and (2) what would the insurance company do about the landlord thereafter?
Posted: Mon Nov 03, 2014 03:07 pm Post Subject:
I'll address #2 first. They would either renew his policy or not. His premiums may or may not be increased. An insurance company either issues policies or they don't... that is what their business is.
#1 is a little more difficult but the insurance company would provide a defense in the case as long as at lease one allegation was covered. If some items may not be covered they would send their insured a letter to explain that they would defend but that some items may ultimately not be covered. There appears to have been a settlement for $25,000. If so, this means that the insurance company made an offer to settle and it was accepted. I think you might be confusing how the policy reads on an intentional act. It's not just something that someone knowingly does as this could be about everything. The insured needs to have known that damages would occur. Looking back you may feel that the landlord did this but it might not be clear. There may also be an issue of some things being covered and others not. How would would the insurance company divide this up. CA laws do not favor an insurance company at all. If the insurance company were to do anything incorrectly, their insured could come back and sue them for more then the policy limits. Perhaps better to pay the $25,000 and call it a day. If the settlement was made early enough then the insurance company could also save $50,000 or $60,000 in defense costs.
Keep in mind that an insurance company collects premiums to address these types situations. So they expects to pay out something on them.
Posted: Mon Nov 03, 2014 06:26 pm Post Subject:
Thank you. That was an excellent answer. I guess that as long as it hasn't been proved in court or by a goverment agency that an act was intentional, then the reasoning which you describe would apply. To give you some more detail as to how it progressed, the landlord first got an attorney to try to scare me off and evade service of process. After the court finally secured the landlord, the landlord got a more professional attorney. The litigation began. The landlord filed an answer and a cross-complaint. The cross-complaint had a phony story about me causing all the damage. Then the discovery process began. The landlord resorted to creating false emails to prop up his phony cross-complaint. Right around that time it seems that the landlord got his homeowner's insurance company involved and there was a third attorney who worked for the insurance company. I indicated to the landlord's second attorney that the emails were fabricated based on some technical discrepancies. It appears that he had also discovered the same thing. That's when the attorney tried to push for a settlement. The insurance company's attorney I had little contact with but was more of a liason. The settlement negotiations eventually led to the $25,000 settlement. I think that even the landlord's second attorney got a pretty good wiff of how nasty and "presumably" intentional the landlord's acts were. It was so bad that it seemed like the second attorney wanted to get the landlord off his back too. I had voicemail recordings of the landlord demanding that I "call off" the county department of environmental health which had already issued a notice to him for the flooding, voicemails of the landlord threatening and "preaching" that I and the judge were "going to hell," 2 retaliatory rent increases within two weeks (one by 45%), threats to cut off my utilities and change the entry lock, copies of multiple illegal notices to enter the apartment to harrass and spy on me (about 10 attempts within 2 weeks), etc.. So even with all this nastiness, which I call a "classic whacked out out of control landlord power trip," as far as the insurance company was concerned, it was still "innocent until proven guilty."
Also, the landlord apparently got the first two attorneys on his own. Would the insurance company have reimbursed the landlord for those two attorney's fees?
Posted: Tue Nov 04, 2014 07:42 am Post Subject:
It sounds like there were many "intentional" acts by the landlord but those were after the fact.
The initial attorneys would be paid for by the landlord. The insurance company would only pay for the attorney that they hired.
Posted: Tue Nov 04, 2014 06:23 pm Post Subject:
Just to clarify, there were lots of intentional acts prior to when I vacated the rental unit, which were the causes of action I listed above. After I filed the lawsuit, the landlord continued with further misconduct, like the false cross-complaint and fabricated emails. The threats concerning the judge occurred prior to my vacating the unit, after I served the landlord with a demand letter, and were attempts to discourage me from later suing. After I filed the lawsuit, the landlord stopped communicating with me but did dare call to threaten and dissuade one of my witnesses, which is a crime in California.
Thanks again for sharing your knowledge and insight.
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