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FEDERAL COURT DISMISSES PUTATIVE CLASS ACTION ACCUSING LIFE INSURER OF FAILING TO DISCLOSE “SHADOW INSURANCE”

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Plaintiffs alleged that AXA Equitable Life Insurance Company violated New York insurance law prohibiting misrepresentations by insurers of their financial condition, because AXA had not disclosed “shadow transactions” in its filings with the New York Department of Financial Services (“NYDFS”). NYDFS defines “shadow insurance” as the use of captive reinsurers in foreign jurisdictions with lower reserve requirements to do an “end-run around higher reserve requirements.” Plaintiffs contended that AXA was not as financially sound as it had represented because in failing to disclose “shadow transactions,” AXA received higher ratings from rating agencies and was able to post fewer reserves thus selling a product that had undisclosed risks and created an “increased risk to the insurance system as a whole. . . .”

The court denied class certification and granted AXA’s motion to dismiss for lack of Article III standing. Plaintiffs did not allege that their premiums were higher because of the alleged “shadow transactions” nor that they had relied upon AXA’s representations in filings with the NYDFS. Violation of rights created by state law (as opposed to federal law), standing alone, does not allege an “injury” sufficient to establish Article III standing. Plaintiffs needed to have established that at least one of them had suffered an “invasion of a legally protected interest which is . . . concrete and particularized” and “actual or imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical.” The Court also explained that since plaintiffs never alleged that they would not have purchased the policies had the disclosures been made or that they had suffered any financial harm because of the misrepresentations, the alleged risk of harm was only in the future and was a very tenuous risk at that. Jonathan Ross v. AXA Equitable Life Insurance Co., Case No. 14-CV-2904 (USDC S.D.N.Y. July 21, 2015).

This post written by Barry Weissman.

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CALIFORNIA COURT DISMISSES TOLLING SUBCLASS CLAIMS WITH PREJUDICE, FINDING ISSUES BARRED BY LAW OF THE CASE DOCTRINE

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We have previously reported on a case styled Munoz v. PHH Corp., one of similar suits alleging putative class actions under the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act arising from purported “sham” reinsurance transfers covering private mortgage insurance. In this ruling, the court granted defendant’s partial motion to dismiss the plaintiff-intervenor’s amended complaint with prejudice and to strike certain allegations from the remaining pleading.

Previously, the court granted the plaintiff-intervenor leave to file an amended complaint to cure deficiencies identified in the court’s order for partial judgment on the pleadings against the plaintiff-intervenor for failure to plead sufficient facts. In that August 2014 order, the court found that PHH’s loan disclosure documents had adequately placed the tolling subclass on notice of their claims, and that no extraordinary circumstances justified the late filing. The court also found that the plaintiff-intervenor failed to sufficiently plead a claim of fraudulent concealment apart from the underlying RESPA claim.

The court found that the allegations in the amended complaint would involve the re-litigation of these previously resolved issues. It reasoned that the amended complaint’s equitable estoppel and tolling claims “merely cloak[ed] the same facts or irrelevant facts in new legal theory, one amenable to the same defenses that have already prevailed” and were therefore barred under the law of the case doctrine. The court dismissed with prejudice because its previous order granted the intervenor one opportunity to amend, and the intervenor failed to cure the complaint’s deficiencies. Because the court had dismissed the claims with prejudice, it struck certain pleadings filed after the date of the order permitting the filing of an amended complaint as immaterial. Munoz v. PHH Corp., Case No. 08-00759 (USDC E.D. Cal. May 21, 2015).

This post written by Brian Perryman.

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FOURTH CIRCUIT REJECTS CHARACTERIZATION OF MOTIONS “FOR RECONSIDERATION,” REMANDS TO DETERMINE WHETHER DISPUTE IS ARBITRABLE

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The Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit recently remanded a case to the district court for full consideration of a request to compel arbitration, finding the lower court’s order “inconsistent with the emphatic federal policy in favor of” arbitration. The plaintiff, Dillon, sued several banks which were allegedly “complicit” in effectuating illegal payday loans by processing transfers on behalf of the lenders (tribal and out-of-state). The district court denied the banks’ initial motion to enforce arbitration clauses contained in the original loan agreements because the banks failed to provide authenticating evidence. When the banks renewed their motions to cure that deficiency by providing such evidence, the district court construed the motions as reconsideration motions, and denied them.

On appeal, the court analyzed the lower court’s perfunctory reasoning in construing the renewed motions as seeking reconsideration. The court rejected the idea that the banks only had one opportunity to invoke the Federal Arbitration Act’s enforcement mechanisms. Only when the party “is in default in proceeding with” arbitration does the Act foreclose the chance of obtaining a stay under its mechanisms. The court also distinguished the underlying issues presented by the initial and renewed motions to reject the notion that the law of the case doctrine justified denial. The district court’s ruling on the initial motions spoke to whether the pleadings established arbitrability did not, as law of the case, determine the renewed motions’ issue of whether Dillon consented to arbitration in the first place. The district court was instructed to, on remand, determine whether the claims are within the scope of the original loan agreement’s arbitration clause, and whether the banks forfeited those rights because they are “in default in proceeding” with arbitration. Dillon v. BMO Harris Bank, N.A., No. 14-1728 (4th Cir. May 29, 2015).

This post written by Brian Perryman.

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COURT DENIES AS MOOT INSURER’S MOTION TO REVIEW DISCOVERY

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A district court in Kansas denied as moot defendant Liberty Mutual Fire Insurance Company’s motion to review a magistrate’s order granting plaintiff Great Plains Ventures, Inc.’s motion to compel reinsurance, reserves, and claims-related materials. The magistrate judge ruled in January that Liberty Mutual failed to establish why documents Great Plains had requested in a coverage dispute were irrelevant or privileged. Thus, the magistrate judge granted Great Plains’ motion to compel. Soon thereafter, Liberty Mutual requested that the magistrate judge stay his order in anticipation of its objection to the discovery order and its motion to review the order to compel. While the motion to review was pending, the magistrate judge denied the motion to stay and ordered Liberty Mutual to produce the documents. Liberty Mutual complied, and because it did so, the court ruled that its request for review was moot. Great Plains Ventures, Inc. v. Liberty Mutual Fire Insurance Co., No. 6:14-cv-01136 (USDC D. Kan. May 1, 2015).

This post written by Whitney Fore, a law clerk at Carlton Fields in Washington, DC.

See our disclaimer.

U.K. COURT DENIES REINSURER’S SUIT TO AVOID REINSURANCE AGREEMENTS

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The Commercial Court (a subdivision of the Queen’s Bench Division of the U.K.’s High Court of Justice), recently held that an underwriter could not avoid the reinsurance contracts it had underwritten because it failed to convince the court that it would not have underwritten those contracts. In a case involving nondisclosure of loss statistics, the court determined that plaintiff reinsurer, Axa, could not avoid two reinsurance agreements that it had entered into with defendant insured, Arab Insurance Group (ARIG). The court made this finding even though ARIG failed to disclose – and perhaps even misrepresented – the loss statistics associated with its existing book of internal risk that was subject to the reinsurance. The court agreed with Axa that the misrepresentation of ARIG’s loss statistics was a material fact that should have been disclosed. However, even if ARIG had disclosed this information prior to the completion of the underwriting process, Axa would still have entered into the reinsurance agreements. Axa failed to prove they were induced by ARIG’s misrepresentation into the reinsurance contracts; they were therefore bound to those contracts. Axa Versicherung AG v. Arab Insurance Group [2015] EWHC 1939 (Comm).

This post written by Whitney Fore, a law clerk at Carlton Fields in Washington, DC.

See our disclaimer.