In a rare policyholder win, a federal district court has refused to dismiss COVID-19-related business litigation filed by the Sacramento Kings basketball team and its venue against FM Global.

PG&E Corp. recorded a $100 million third-quarter charge for a California wildfire that its equipment may have sparked last month in the Sierra Nevada mountains.
California’s biggest utility said the costs of the Mosquito Fire should be largely offset by insurance and other rate recoveries, according to a filing Thursday with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

Like a growing number of people in the American West, naturalist William Simpson is intimately familiar with wildfire. He lives in California’s rural Siskiyou County where overgrown grass and brush routinely fuel hot-burning and deadly wildfires.

A man linked to one of San Joaquin County’s largest-ever insurance fraud schemes reported a Mercedes-Benz found buried at his former home stolen in 1992 and collected tens of thousands of dollars in insurance on the vehicle, according to San Mateo County authorities.

A pipeline operator has agreed to pay $50 million to thousands of Southern California fishermen, tourism companies and property owners who sued after an offshore oil spill last year near Huntington Beach.

Responding to a crime trend involving the theft of catalytic converters, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed two bills on Sept. 25. The new laws, the Governor’s office said, prohibit the sale of used catalytic converters by parties who aren’t licensed auto dealers or dismantlers.

State Farm has released an update to a previous report it has made regarding recent trends in auto insurance claims having to do with catalytic converter thefts. The trend, though already bad in the last report, has only managed to worsen across the country.

Former executives and directors of Pacific Gas & Electric have agreed to pay $117 million to settle a lawsuit over devastating 2017 and 2018 California wildfires sparked by the utility’s equipment, it was announced Thursday.

The 2nd Appellate District in Montes v. Young Men’s Christian Assn. of Glendale, California (2022 Cal.App.LEXIS 677) recently reaffirmed the application of the ‘open and obvious’ defense to premises liability claims, especially as they related to trial following an unsuccessful motion for summary judgment raising the defense.

Rescuers searched for a person missing in a mudslide Tuesday as big yellow tractors plowed through dark, thick sludge and pushed boulders off roads after flash floods swept dirt, rocks and trees down fire-scarred slopes, washed away cars and buried buildings in small mountain communities in Southern California.

Dozens of buildings burned and a major interstate was closed as gusty winds fanned a large wildfire in California’s Sierra Nevada and ignited another blaze nearby, authorities said Tuesday. The Mosquito Fire tore through 51 buildings, destroying 46 of them, in the small community of Michigan Bluff, west of South Lake Tahoe, Placer County Sheriff’s Lt. Josh Barnhart said in a statement.

Firefighters continue to battle the Mountain Fire and the deadly Mill Fire burning in Northern California, which grew minimally Monday night following explosive starts Friday in Siskiyou County. The Mill Fire has killed at least two residents, women ages 66 and 73, and has destroyed at least 91 buildings after igniting near the city of Weed on Friday afternoon and burning north into the community of Lake Shastina.

The Washington Supreme Court became the fifth state supreme court to rule in insurers’ favor Thursday in COVID-related business interruption litigation when it unanimously ruled against a dental practice.

Last month, thieves stole millions of dollars’ worth of jewelry from a Brink’s tractor-trailer in a late-night heist, and according to a new lawsuit filed by the security company, one of the drivers was asleep inside the vehicle during the robbery.

Residents in the McKinney fire burn area sued PacifiCorp this week, alleging that sparks from the utility’s high-voltage transmission lines and other equipment ignited the deadly blaze last month near the California-Oregon border.