Edd King v. National General Insurance Company

Background

On May 5, 2025, the court certified a class brought by Diedre King and Edd King against National General Insurance Company, Integon National Insurance Company, Integon Preferred Insurance Company, and MIC General Insurance Corporation. The plaintiffs allege violations of section 1861.16(b) of the California Insurance Code. Their claim proceeds under the unlawful and unfair prongs of California’s Unfair Competition Law.

The plaintiffs allege that the defendants failed to make a legally required cross-offer of the lowest-rate Good Driver Discount insurance policy. They contend that class members therefore paid more for their policies than they should have. The court’s class-certification ruling found that reliance was not an element of the plaintiffs’ claim and that harm could be shown through common evidence that class members bought policies that were unlawfully sold without the required lowest-rate cross-offer.

Motion for reconsideration

The defendants sought reconsideration of the class-certification order on two issues: Article III standing and whether common questions predominated under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(b)(3). Article III standing is the requirement that a plaintiff show a concrete injury, a connection between that injury and the defendant’s conduct, and a likelihood that a court decision can remedy the injury.

The defendants argued that insurance customers consider factors besides price when choosing a policy. In their view, individualized inquiries would be needed to determine whether each class member would have accepted the lower-rate policy if it had been offered. They argued that the plaintiffs lacked common proof of causation and harm and therefore could not satisfy the predominance requirement for a class action.

The court allowed reconsideration on the standing and predominance issues because the defendants had raised Article III standing in their class-certification briefing and the earlier order had not addressed standing in the context of predominance. The court had denied leave to seek reconsideration of the certified class definition.

Court’s analysis

The court explained that the Ninth Circuit permits class certification when the plaintiff presents a method of proof capable of showing harm on a class-wide basis, even if the class may include more than a minimal number of uninjured members. The court acknowledged that the plaintiffs had shown common proof of whether the defendants failed to make the required lowest-rate cross-offer, but had not adequately shown common proof of whether every class member would have accepted that policy.

The court then considered whether failing to make the required cross-offer was itself a concrete injury. It concluded that the alleged failure was closely related to injuries recognized in other Unfair Competition Law cases, including unlawfully selling a product in a form that the defendant could not legally sell and failing to disclose material information to consumers.

The court held that a reasonable consumer would consider the existence of a lower-price policy with similar or identical coverage important in deciding how to act. It therefore found a presumption of harm for each class member who purchased a policy after the defendants allegedly failed to make the required cross-offer. For Article III standing, the plaintiffs only needed common proof that class members purchased a policy from the defendants and that the defendants unlawfully failed to disclose lower-price policy options. The court found that the plaintiffs had provided that proof.

Disposition

The court found that the defendants’ arguments about Article III standing and predominance did not change the outcome of the class-certification order. It denied the defendants’ motion for reconsideration. The opinion does not state that the motion was denied with or without prejudice.