backKing & Spalding obtained a victory on behalf of Progressive Specialty Insurance, persuading the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit to reverse the certification of a class action concerning the insurance company’s estimate of the actual cash value of its insureds’ total-loss vehicles.
Plaintiffs sought to represent classes of insureds in Pennsylvania who had settled total-loss claims with Progressive. Plaintiffs claim that Progressive breached its insurance contracts by paying to pay the actual cash value of totaled vehicles. Plaintiffs claimed that the software Progressive uses to estimate vehicle actual cash values improperly relies on projections of the sales prices for vehicles comparable to the insured’s total vehicles that are listed for sale, rather than relying on advertised list prices.
The Third Circuit reversed the District Court’s certification of a class, holding that individualized issues associated with estimating vehicle values would predominate over any purportedly common issues relating to the methodology Progressive utilizes in settling Plaintiffs’ total loss claims.
The King & Spalding Business Litigation and Appellate Practice Groups collaborated to prevail on appeal, with a team including Jeff Cashdan, Zach McEntyre, Matthew Brigman, Paul Mezzina, Amy Upshaw, Allison White, and Nicole Bronnimann.