Ever since the Texas Supreme Court changed the landscape of Texas law regarding appraisal in Barbara Technologies Corp. v. State Farm Lloyds, 589 S.W.3d 806 (Tex. 2019) and Ortiz v. State Farm Lloyds, 589 S.W.3d 127 (Tex. 2019), practitioners and courts have been struggling to apply the Texas Supreme Court’s holdings. Barbara Technologies and Ortiz answered some questions but raised others. About The Authors
In 2019, the Supreme Court of Texas issued a pair of decisions that allowed policyholders to prosecute claims under the Texas Prompt Payment of Claims Act (“TPPCA”) even after the insurers paid appraisal awards. The decisions were a modification of law and so post-appraisal litigation has and continues to evolve. One such example is a recent decision from District Judge Tipton of the Southern District of Texas in White v. Allstate Vehicle and Property Insurance Company, which has provided a potential road map for insurers looking to curb post-appraisal demands and litigation after the payment of an appraisal award.[1] About The Author
In Hinojos v. State Farm Lloyds, the Supreme Court of Texas addressed liability under the Texas Prompt Payment of Claims Act (the “TPPCA”) when an insurer timely pays only part of a claim.[1] As demonstrated in Hinojos, disputes as to TPPCA liability typically arise in the context of appraisal and the payment of an award. In a fairly short opinion, the Court held that timely payments less than the full amount of the ultimate insurance claim do not satisfy an insurer’s duties under the TPPCA. However, the Court also reiterated that payment of an appraisal award outside the TPPCA’s deadlines does not satisfy a policyholder’s burden to prove an actual TPPCA violation. About The Author
While Hurricane Ike made landfall in Texas almost ten years ago, the resulting litigation is alive and well as evidenced by the recent decision in Texas Windstorm Insurance Association v. Dickinson Independent School District, 14-16-00474-CV, 2018 WL 2436924 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] May 31, 2018, no pet. h.). In that case, Houston’s Fourteenth District Court of Appeals addressed whether an unpaid appraisal award established an insurance company’s liability under a named-peril insurance policy as a matter of law. In analyzing and applying the Supreme Court of Texas’s decision in State Farm Lloyds v. Johnson, 290 S.W.3d 886 (Tex. 2009), the court held that the appraisal award, by itself, did not conclusively establish liability for purposes of the policyholder’s motion for…
