Farmers Insurance Sues 100's of Municipalities For Flooding Claims
Update 6/3/2014: Farmers voluntarily dismissed its Cook County lawsuit today and it appears it may be dismissing all of its lawsuits.
On April 17, 2014, Farmers Insurance filed class action lawsuits against nearly 100 municipalities, townships, and other governmental entities in the Cook County, Illinois area seeking to recover millions of dollars paid in claims the insurance company paid out after the heavy rains on April 18, 2013 and April 19, 2013. The lawsuits were filed on behalf of insurers and property owners.
On April 17, 2014, Farmers Insurance filed class action lawsuits against nearly 100 municipalities, townships, and other governmental entities in the Cook County, Illinois area seeking to recover millions of dollars paid in claims the insurance company paid out after the heavy rains on April 18, 2013 and April 19, 2013. The lawsuits were filed on behalf of insurers and property owners.
The first count in the complaint filed in Cook County Circuit Court alleges that the
municipalities negligently maintained their storm water systems by failing to
utilize temporary storm water protection systems. The second count alleges a
failure to remedy a known dangerous condition where the storm water invasions
had occurred before. The third count states that the plaintiffs were subject to
an unlawful taking where the local governments had appropriated the property of
others for use as retention basins, detention basins, or other storage
structures.
Citing
the 2008 adoption of the Chicago Climate Action Plan, the dominant argument of
the complaint is that local governments mismanaged their storm water systems
when they knew the systems were undersized for increased rainfall brought about
by climate change, and that the governments allegedly knew that that they needed to
increase their storm water system’s capacity because of prior flooding incidents
and investigations.
We will provide updates on the status of this litigation, including any responses filed by the defendant municipalities and other governmental entities.
You
can find the 143-page complaint here.
Post Authored by Julie Tappendorf and Caitlyn Sharrow, Ancel Glink
0 comments:
Post a Comment