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Jared LeBeau

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Jared LeBeau is a partner in the Business Trial Practice Group in the firm's San Diego office.

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In Truck Ins. Exch. v. Kaiser Cement, 321 Cal. Rptr. 3d 761, 549 P.3d 781 (2024), the California Supreme Court answered the question left open by Montrose Chem. Corp. v. Superior Ct., 9 Cal. 5th 215 (2020) (Montrose III): for a continuous injury or damage spanning multiple policy periods, must an insured exhaust all implicated primary policies spanning the entire period of injury or damage prior to accessing any excess policy during that period. Continue Reading The California Supreme Court Confirms Vertical Exhaustion Applies for First-Layer Excess Insurers

Pinto v. Farmers Ins. Exch., ___ Cal. App. 5th ___ (2021)

Over the past several years, the insurance industry in California has been plagued by waves of “bad faith failure to settle” claims.  These claims arise out of a variety of circumstances and can take many forms, but at their core involve the following: an insured injures a third party; that third party then offers to settle his/her claim for the policy limits; but the insurer, for one reason or another, fails to accept that settlement demand.  Once that happens, the third party claimant then takes the position that the “cap is off” the policy such that the insurer should be responsible for paying the full amount of any judgment the claimant obtains against the insured, even if it exceeds the policy limits.
Continue Reading Keeping the Cap On the Policy: Unreasonable Conduct Is a Necessary Element of a “Bad Faith Failure to Settle” Claim