As this article is posted, the most recent application of the filed-rate doctrine to an insurance case has come once again through the pen of a federal judge in a federal case.
The case is Leo v. Nationstar Mort. LLC, No. 19-3111, 2020 WL 356998, at *1-*5 (3d Cir. July 1, 2020). I have just cited the entire opinion here. There is a reason. I have not found any reference in the panel decision to the law of one of the two states, North Carolina, from which some of the named plaintiffs came when they filed this action and alleged their claims. Perhaps North Carolina was mentioned in this diversity case, other than as the state in which some of the named plaintiffs resided; but I can find no mention of North Carolina other than that. You are sincerely invited to take a look at the opinion for yourself.
The plaintiffs in this diversity case also included mortgagors from New Jersey. All of the plaintiffs alleged that they suffered damage as a result of their lender placing insurance premiums on them by force. The panel applied the filed-rate defense in an insurance case without citing to a single New Jersey State Court decision, whether on insurance or on any other issue.
The panel was careful to mention that "New Jersey law apprehends the filed-rate doctrine to the same extent as federal law." Leo, 2020 WL 3563998, at *2 n.1. The court then cited a federal case for this proposition of New Jersey law.
To say again, the court did not cite any New Jersey State Court cases in which New Jersey courts applied the filed-rate defense in an insurance case (or any other kind of case).
That is why I have cited here to the court's entire opinion. Perhaps you will find these missing references somewhere in it; I have not found any.
To complete the analysis of the Leo panel decision, the federal appellate court was confronted in that case with claims of kickbacks alleged by "borrowers from New Jersey and North Carolina" that were included in the insurance premiums forced on them "by their reverse-mortgage lender[.]" Leo, 2020 WL 3563998, at *1. The court noted at least one other time that the plaintiffs-borrowers were from New Jersey and from North Carolina. Leo, 2020 WL 3563998, at *4.
Although the court did not mention North Carolina insurance law or the state of the filed-rate defense under North Carolina law, the judges on the appellate panel in this case may have understandably considered that they were presented with a case in which only New Jersey filed-rate law was important. It is worth noting that the plaintiffs' attorneys filed a complaint presenting only New Jersey State law claims along with claims for alleged violations of federal law. Leo, 2020 WL 3563998, at *1-*2.
For the plaintiffs and their lawyers as well, the facts that some of the named plaintiffs resided in North Carolina and that North Carolina law might be involved, may have been afterthoughts. Although the Amended Complaint was filed on behalf of New Jersey and North Carolina named plaintiffs, everything else about the claims alleged in the Amended Complaint spoke of New Jersey.
The Amended Complaint contained a request for a New Jersey subclass if the case were certified as a class, but no mention was made of North Carolina. Venue was alleged to be proper in the Southern District of New Jersey. The defendants were alleged to be residents of Delaware and Ohio for diversity purposes. It does not appear that any attorneys of record came from North Carolina, and none appeared on the Amended Complaint. These facts are not mentioned in the appellate opinion, but they do appear from a review of the District Court's electronic docket of the case on PACER (Public Access to [Federal] Court Electronic Records). See Leo v. Nationstar Mort. LLC, DE 58, Amended Complaint, filed January 19, 2018 (D.N.J. No. 3:17-cv-08539-AET-DEA).
At any rate, this is yet another filed insurance rate decision in a diversity case by a federal court where the feds have not cited a single State Court decision from the forum state.
The Leo case will be discussed along with many other authorities by Dennis J. Wall in § 2:17, Claims Handling Practices Issues: Force-Placed Insurance After Catastrophe Claims, in CATASTROPHE CLAIMS: INSURANCE COVERAGE FOR NATURAL AND MAN-MADE DISASTERS (Thomson Reuters forthcoming in the Fall of 2020).
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