Couple Win Right to Pursue Their Temblor-Damage Suit

A Fullerton couple who claim their home was damaged in a 1986 earthquake scored a victory Thursday when an appeals court ruled that they could continue their 3 1/2-year battle against their insurance company.

Raphael and Shirley Weiner have yet to collect on a claim they submitted to Allstate Insurance Co. in 1986 in the wake of an earthquake that they say left cracks throughout their one-story stucco home in Fullerton. Allstate officials said at the time that the cracks were caused by complications from a landslide and were no longer covered by the Weiners’ policy.

“I feel vindicated. The unanimous decision made me feel very happy,” Shirley Weiner said. “But we’re back to square one” in getting Allstate to diagnose the problem and pay for the repairs, the cost of which have yet to be determined.

“I feel unsafe because I don’t know what the problem is. There’s no peace at home.”

The legal issue that landed the case in the 4th District Court of Appeal was whether the Weiners could press a breach-of-contract lawsuit against Allstate for not paying for the damage even though the couple filed the suit in August, 1987, more than a year after they first submitted the claim for damage.

Allstate’s policy says lawsuits must be brought within a year of the loss, the court noted.

The Weiners argued that the clock should not have started ticking until Allstate investigated and rejected the claim in October, 1986, nearly four months after it was submitted.

The appeals court agreed, citing a similar case brought before the state Supreme Court last year. Because the original claim was denied in October, wrote Justice Sheila Prell Sonenshine, the “Weiners then had at least 11 months in which to file suit. Their complaint, filed in August, 1987, falls well within that period.”

The opinion reversed a judgment by Orange County Superior Court Judge William F. Rylaardsdam, who ruled that the suit fell outside the one-year statute of limitation.

Attorney Daniel Spradlin, who represented the Weiners, said the court’s ruling was an “equitable decision.”

“It’s fair to the insurance company. It doesn’t prevent the one-year provision if the insured (party) knows that he has a problem and doesn’t present his (complaint) in a one-year period,” Spradlin said.

However, Charles Bird, attorney for Allstate, said the precedent did not seem to be a good one.

“The other side of that is by waiting almost a year to make the claim and then not being very cooperative with an insurance company . . . a claimant who wants to delay can control the timing by, in effect, slowing down the claims process and the investigation,” he said. “I don’t know that that’s a good idea.”