SUMMARY JUDGMENT – VILLA MAISON

Villa Maison Homeowners Association, Inc. v. Owners Insurance Company, Case No. 17-cv-01542-RM-KMT, United States District Court, District of Colorado.

Plaintiff is the owner of real property in Denver, Colorado and defendant issued a policy of insurance to Plaintiff. Plaintiff alleged a hail/wind event on June 24, 2015 caused property damage, but did not report the claim to the Defendant until March 2017. Plaintiff filed a lawsuit less than three months later, on June 23, 2017, asserting claims for unreasonable delay in claim handling in violation of C.RS. §§ 10-3-1115, 1116 and common law bad faith. Defendant moved to dismiss the unreasonable delay or denial and common law bad faith claim, which the Court granted on July 9, 2018, holding that “If there were ever two claims that should not have been raised in an insurance-coverage-dispute case, Claims Two and Three for unreasonable delay and bad faith are certainly those two claims. Although plaintiff did not provide notice of her claimed loss until somewhere around 21 months after the loss occurred, plaintiff expects its insurance company to have investigated and paid-out on the claim within around 3 months after being notified.” Defendant then moved for summary judgment on the remaining breach of contract claim, which the court granted on January 22, 2019, finding that the notice was not timely as a matter of law, and that Defendant had been prejudiced by the late notice as it stopped insuring the property in September 2015 and there were at least two subsequent hail storms in the vicinity of the property since June 24, 2015. ent 6;\lsdpri