From the Case Files: Insurance Company Claims Act of God Caused Client’s Injuries; Rabbi Lawyer Proves them Wrong!!
This week’s “From the Case Files” involves one of my favorite cases I handled recently.
My client, a recent immigrant, managed a perfume kiosk at a local outdoor shopping mall. The kiosk was adjacent to a retail store that was undergoing construction. A scaffold had been put up as part of the construction.
One afternoon, a piece of the scaffold fell off and landed on my client’s kiosk. A construction manager showed up, took pictures, and filled out a report. No changes were made to the construction scaffold.
Fast forward one week. A gust of wind came out of nowhere on a busy fall morning. A noise caught my client’s attention. Suddenly, the construction scaffold began to plummet towards my client’s kiosk. He tried to get out of the way, but he was not completely successful. The scaffold came down on his shoulder, causing him serious injuries.
My client did not have health insurance, did not have a medical network, and did not speak English fluently. He got in touch with my office, and we went to work.
My office was able to connect this client with the appropriate doctors and physical therapists. In the meantime, the insurance company for the construction company that had put up the scaffold sent us some ridiculous news: They were denying liability for the case, claiming that the gust of wind was an “Act of God” for which they were not responsible. To support this argument, the insurance adjuster sent me a KTLA news article printout with the headline “Heavy Winds Forecast for this Weekend".
The insurance adjuster was flat out wrong. California law does recognize certain instances where nobody is to blame for the resulting harm. An “Act of God” can be when a hurricane, tsunami, or even earthquake God forbid, cause havoc and devastation.
When a piece of a scaffold falls off one week—and a construction manager investigates—and the very next week a gust of wind knocks the entire thing down—that is not Act of God. Furthermore, California law requires construction scaffolds to be tied down in a way that they can withstand normative gusts of wind. Clearly, that did not happen in this case.
I took my client’s case to mediation before a well-known and respected judge here in Los Angeles. I pointed out the lunacy of relying on a KTLA news article to deny liability for this serious negligence. I argued to the judge that when a news article headline states “Heavy Winds Forecast"“—that means the construction company knows in advance that the area will be windy. The very definition of “forecast” is a prediction of a future event. One of the cornerstones of Tort law is predictability and foreseeability. The scaffold collapsing on my client was a foreseeable event that this insurance company was liable for—not an Act of God for which it was blameless.
The judge agreed. The mediation ended successfully with my client’s case being resolved for a substantial amount. Justice was served for this deserving client.
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