Insurer’s Motion to Compel Inspection Denied
The court denied the insurer's motion to compel an inspection of the insured's residential rental property and the insurer's request for attorney fees. Bradley v. Evanston Ins. Co., 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 14522 (E.D. La. Jan. 27, 2025).
Plaintiff suffered damage to her property due to Hurricane Ida. Evanston insured the property. Plaintiff submitted a claim for loss sustained in the storm. Evanston sent a claims adjuster to inspect the property. Plaintiff alleged that Evanston failed to pay sufficient funds for her loss.
Plaintiff filed suit raising claims of breach of contract and bad faith. Evanston filed a Motion to Compel plaintiff to allow the insurer's engineer, Kevin Vanderbrook, P.E., to inspect the property. Evanston contended plaintiff had retained her own engineer and public adjuster but denied Evanston's request to allow Vanderbrook to inspect the property to evaluate plaintiff's experts' opinions. Plaintiff argued that Evanston should be prohibited from inspecting the property so late in the litigation, especially considering that Evanston failed to follow through on any of its multiple attempts to schedule Vanderbrook's inspection before plaintiff filed suit.
In its motion, Evanston contended that the inspection would be limited to the engineer's evaluation of the purported damage that plaintiff claimed was caused by Hurricane Ida but was not identified as hurricane-related by the independent adjuster. Evanston submitted that the inspection was not burdensome or oppressive, and that it would be unduly prejudiced if it could not conduct an inspection to evaluate plaintiff's claims and present an engineer at trial as an expert on the cause of the claimed damages.
The court found there was no evidence that Evanston issued a formal Rule 34 request for inspection. Evanston only requested an inspection through an email, which simply stated that Vanderbrook was available to inspect the property on various dates. The motion did not provide an explanation for Evanston's delay in seeking to inspect plaintiffs property, nor its failure to properly issue a Request for Inspection in compliance with Rule 34. The court refused to grant a motion to compel an inspection based solely on informal correspondence of counsel. Therefore, the motion to compel was denied, as was Evanston's request for attorneys fees.
