In Liberty Ins. Underwriters, Inc. v. Davies Lemmis Raphaely Law Corp., 162 F. Supp. 3d 1068 (C.D. Cal. 2016) (page numbers not yet available from Westlaw), appeal docketed, No. 16-55711 (9th Cir. May 16, 2016), a District Judge in California held that seven lawsuits against a law firm for alleged malpractice collectively made for one claim for purposes of the firm's per-claim professional liability policy limit on the applicable policy. The seven suits in this instance did not trigger $2,000,000 aggregate limits. The reason for decision was that the alleged actions all arose from a single course of conduct:
In this case, while the Underlying Actions have been brought by different plaintiffs, they all arise from a single course of conduct, a unified policy of making alleged affirmative misrepresentations to investors in order to induce them to invest in commercial real estate acquisitions facilitated by AMC ["Asset Management Consultants, Inc."].
AMC is identified in the opinion as "a licensed California real estate broker which facilitates real estate investment partnerships, and its principal, James Hopper (collectively 'AMC')." Liberty Ins. Underwriters, Inc. v. Davies Lemmis Raphaely Law Corp., 162 F. Supp. 3d 1068 (C.D. Cal. 2016) (page numbers not yet available from Westlaw, but this quotation is from the final sentence of the fourth full paragraph in the District Court's opinion), appeal docketed, No. 16-55711 (9th Cir. May 16, 2016). The District Judge accordingly granted the insurance company's motion for summary judgment "as to whether the Underlying Actions should be considered a single claim for purposes of the per-claim limit ...."
The per-claim limit on the relevant policy is $1,250,000. In the last two paragraphs of its opinion, the District Court denied the insurance company's motion for summary judgment in this case as to the factually disputed issue of "whether the per-claim limit has been exhausted."
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