{"id":789,"date":"2008-05-21T16:02:16","date_gmt":"2008-05-21T23:02:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bullivant.wpengine.com\/?p=789"},"modified":"2021-03-21T13:43:07","modified_gmt":"2021-03-21T20:43:07","slug":"california-court-protects-insurers-rights-to-contest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/studioactiv8.com\/bullivant\/california-court-protects-insurers-rights-to-contest\/","title":{"rendered":"California Court Protects Insurers&#8217; Rights To Contest Coverage After Appraisal"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"wpb-content-wrapper\">[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]A California Court of Appeal has held that upon confirming an appraisal award, a court may not enter a money judgment for the insured if the insurer contests liability for any portion of the award due to coverage limitations. Devonwood Condominium Owners Association v. Farmers, &#8212; Cal. App. 4th &#8212; (5\/20\/08).<\/p>\n<p>Devonwood and Farmers submitted a dispute over the valuation of a fire damage claim to appraisal. Throughout the process, Farmers maintained that certain costs submitted to the panel were not covered and that a deductible would apply to the balance, but neither Farmers nor Devonwood asked the appraisers to decide those coverage issues. The appraisers returned a unanimous award, which explicitly stated that it was &#8220;without consideration of any deductible amount or any coverage or other provision . . . which might affect the amount of the insurer&#8217;s liability.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Devonwood moved to confirm the appraisal award and asked a trial court to enter a money judgment for the full amount of the award, notwithstanding the coverage issue and deductible. Devonwood relied on California Civil Code<br \/>\ns 1287.4 (part of the California Arbitration Act), which provides, &#8220;If an award is confirmed, judgment shall be entered in conformity therewith.&#8221; Farmers did not oppose confirmation per se but opposed the requested money judgment. The trial court entered the requested judgment anyway, but on appeal, Farmers prevailed.<\/p>\n<p>The appellate court agreed with Farmers that the money judgment was not &#8220;in conformity&#8221; with the appraisal award as required by California Civil Code s 1287.4. The court explained that because the scope of an insurance appraisal is limited to determinations of &#8220;value&#8221; and &#8220;the amount of loss,&#8221; an appraisal award cannot be deemed a determination of all issues affecting an insurer&#8217;s liability for a claim. Where there are issues regarding coverage, deductibles, or limits, a trial court may not ignore those issues and enter a money judgment for the full amount of the award. Rather, the trial court should merely enter a declaratory judgment that the values and amounts of loss are what the appraisers calculated them to be.<\/p>\n<p>Update: The opinion is now published as 162 Cal. App. 4<sup>th<\/sup> 1498, 77 Cal. Rptr. 3d 88.[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]A California Court of Appeal has held that upon confirming an appraisal award, a court may not enter a money judgment for the insured if the insurer contests liability for any portion of the award due to coverage limitations. Devonwood Condominium Owners Association v. Farmers, &#8212; Cal. App. 4th &#8212; (5\/20\/08). Devonwood and Farmers submitted&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[147],"tags":[198],"post_series":[],"class_list":["post-789","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-insurance-coverage","tag-insights","authorormentioned-samuel-ruby","entry","no-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/studioactiv8.com\/bullivant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/789","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/studioactiv8.com\/bullivant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/studioactiv8.com\/bullivant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studioactiv8.com\/bullivant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studioactiv8.com\/bullivant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=789"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/studioactiv8.com\/bullivant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/789\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/studioactiv8.com\/bullivant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studioactiv8.com\/bullivant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studioactiv8.com\/bullivant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=789"},{"taxonomy":"post_series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studioactiv8.com\/bullivant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_series?post=789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}