California Legal Brief

The Rule of Nargizyan is that an insurer cannot establish application of a "continuous or repeated seepage or leakage" policy exclusion based solely on the size of a pinhole leak and resulting water damage, without evidence of the actual duration of the leak, under circumstances where the insured discovered and immediately repaired the leak with no evidence of mold or long-term water accumulation.

The Rule of Maynard Matthews et al. v. Patrick Ryan is that a section 998 settlement offer conditioned on consent by the defendant's insurance carrier is valid, under circumstances where the defendant is defended by an insurer whose consent is necessarily required for any settlement regardless of whether such consent is expressly stated in the offer.

The Rule of City of Riverside v. RLI Insurance Company is that an additional insured has standing to sue both the named insured and the insurer in the same action for breach of contract and bad faith claims, under circumstances where the plaintiff is a first-party additional insured with privity of contract rather than a third-party tort claimant.