Stiles v. Safeco Insurance ( 2022 )

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 9 FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 10 1] Sharidan Stiles, No. 2:20-cv-01731-KJM-DMC 12 Plaintiff, ORDER 13 v. 14 General Insurance Company of America and 15 Does 1 through 20, 16 Defendants. 17 18 Sharidan Stiles alleges General Insurance Company of America wrongly and in bad faith 19 | denied insurance claims related to damages her home sustained in the 2018 Carr Fire. See Second 20 | Am. Compl. 5-14, ECF No. 27. General moves to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6), arguing Stiles 21 | filed this lawsuit after the applicable one-year limitations period. See generally Mot., ECF 22 | No. 40; Mem., ECF No. 40-1. The motion is fully briefed and the court submitted it without a 23 | hearing. See generally Opp’n, ECF No. 38; Reply, ECF No. 43; Min. Order, ECF No. 44. 24 “To dismiss a complaint on statute of limitations grounds, it must appear ‘beyond doubt 25 | that the plaintiff can prove no set of facts that would establish the timeliness of the claim.’” 26 | Rand v. Midland Nat’l Life Ins., 857 F. App’x 343, 347 (9th Cir. 2021) (unpublished) (quoting 27 | Supermail Cargo, Inc. v. United States, 68 F.3d 1204, 1207 (9th Cir. 1995)). Under California 28 | law, the one-year limit for Stiles’s claims began to run on “the date of ‘inception of the □□□□□□□ but 1 | it was tolled from the time she gave notice of the damage to General “until coverage [was] 2 | denied.” Prudential-LMI Com. Ins. v. Superior Court, 51 Cal. 3d 674, 693 (1990). Stiles alleges 3 | some of her claims were initially denied in a December 2018 letter, Second Am. Compl. 4 8, but 4 | she alleges General “continued negotiations for months following the letter,” id. 411. She also 5 | alleges “additional items were disclosed” to General after December 2018. /d. § 12. She does not 6 | detail how long negotiations continued after December 2018, so it is unclear when her claim was 7 | actually denied, and thus when the tolling period ended. For that reason, the court cannot 8 | conclude “beyond doubt” that Stiles filed this lawsuit after the statute of limitations expired. 9 The motion to dismiss (ECF No. 40) is denied. A status (pretrial scheduling) conference 10 | is set for June 16, 2022 at 2:30 p.m. before the undersigned, with a joint report due fourteen days 11 | prior. 12 IT IS SO ORDERED. 13 DATED: May 24, 2022. 14 CHIEF ED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE 45