Once again – Tharpe & Howell’s Bad Faith Defense Team achieved excellent results for an insurance carrier client when the California Court of Appeal upheld the previous granting of a Motion for Summary Judgment in an action alleging bad faith!
In the underlying case, an insured of Fire Insurance Exchange (the Firm’s client), was sued for an alleged sexually motivated assault and false imprisonment.
In the subsequent bad faith case, the main issue concerned coverage for “false imprisonment” that was keyed to an “occurrence” defined as an “accident.” Read More
The Firm’s Bay Area General Litigation Team recently obtained a Summary Judgment on behalf of a Firm car rental client. In this case, the plaintiff was an injured passenger in a vehicle driven by an intoxicated driver that collided with another vehicle at a San Jose intersection. The Firm’s client had rented the car to an individual who, by the terms of the rental contract, was the only permissive operator of the vehicle.
Because the driver of the vehicle at the time of the accident was not the renter, the issue before the court was whether or not the driver had implied permission to operate the vehicle and hence extend liability to the Firm’s client. Read More
Partners Tim Lake and Chris Maile successfully defended an insurance carrier in a bad-faith case brought by an 83 year old plaintiff alleging the carrier had breached his homeowners insurance policy and committed bad-faith when it refused to pay a judgment against him of $235,000.00. As a result of some favorable legal rulings based upon coverage defenses asserted by the carrier and damaging testimony to the plaintiff’s case by several early witnesses, plaintiff settled the case during trial, rather than face possible dismissal on a non-suit motion. Read More
Firm Attorney Soojin Kang has once again been designated as a Top Young Lawyer and rising star by the Southern California Super Lawyers Rising Star Edition. Last year, attorney Kang earned this honor for the second year in a row – making her one of the less than 3% of attorneys who have received this honor two years in a row. Now, Ms. Kang has been honored with this recognition for the third year in a row. Read More
The Firm recently secured an appellate victory for one of the Firm’s hotel/lodging clients, Motel 6.
In this case, the plaintiff/general contractor had demanded that Motel 6 pay it amounts the general contractor had paid to a subcontractor in relation to a welding project. The general contractor alleged that because it had to pay the subcontractor, Motel 6 was required to pay to the plaintiff/general contractor more than was allowed under the parties’ contract. Although the lower court had ruled against Motel 6, Tharpe & Howell appealed the decision on its behalf and obtained a victory in this contract dispute case! Read More
