Harriprashad v. Metro. Prop. & Cas. Ins. Co.
| Decision Date | 07 June 2013 |
| Docket Number | 1:09-CV-3105 (ENV)(VMS) |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Eastern District of New York |
| Parties | CHANDRAWATTIE HARRIPRASHAD, Plaintiff, v. METROPOLITAN PROPERTY AND CASUALTY INSURANCE COMPANY d/b/a METLIFE AUTO & HOME, ACE AMERICAN INSURANCE COMPANY, Defendant. |
VITALIANO, D.J.
Plaintiff Chandrawattie Harriprashad seeks coverage under an insurance policy issued by defendant Metropolitan Property and Casualty Insurance Company ("Metropolitan") for claims of loss related to a fire that severely damaged her home on May 20, 2007.1 In addition, Harriprashad has claimed special damages arising from Metropolitan's alleged breach of the insurance contract.2 Metropolitan now moves for summary judgment onHarriprashad's breach of contract claim on the theory that plaintiff vitiated coverage by violating the concealment or fraud provision of her policy. That defense rests on the allegation that plaintiff submitted forged documents and made false statements in connection with her claims. Alternatively, Metropolitan also moves for summary judgment on plaintiff's claim for special damages. For the reasons set forth below, Metropolitan's motion is denied in its entirety.
Harriprashad owns a home located at 170-32 93rd Street in Jamaica, New York. On May 20, 2007, a fire caused extensive damage to the structure as well as to certain personal property it contained. The building and Harriprashad's possessions were covered by a homeowners insurance policy issued by Metropolitan. Harriprashad submitted, on August 23, 2007, the subject claim, including a sworn statement of proof of loss ("proof of loss"). Obvious by this lawsuit, Metropolitan denied coverage.
As Metropolitan explains in its moving papers, denial of coverage, in large part, is grounded in its claim that Harriprashad first appended to her proof of loss false documentation of certain losses and expenditures and then, second, liedabout their authenticity during an examination under oath ("EUO").4 The first set of alleged misstatements and fraudulent documents concern four rent receipts, totaling $6000, that Harriprashad submitted with her claim. She testified at the EUO that the receipts were signed and provided to her by Mohammed Haniff, who owned the private home in which she rented a second floor apartment in the four month period June 2007 to September 2007. Her daughter, Angela Lachana, and a friend, Parbati Wong, corroborated her testimony at their depositions. Both described visiting Harriprashad at an apartment that matched the one in Haniff's home.5
While presumably not denying the ferocity of the fire that ravaged plaintiff's home and forced her to seek shelter elsewhere, Metropolitan attacks the authenticity of the receipts and asserts that Harriprashad lied during the EUO. In its attack, Metropolitan relies on the deposition testimony of Mohammed M. Haniff ("Haniff"), the current owner of the home where Harriprashad claims to have temporarily rented the apartment. In 2007, Haniff lived at the premises, which were then owned by his father, of the same name. He denied under oath that he or any other member of his family signed the receipts submitted by plaintiff and that Harriprashad ever lived in the apartment. Further, he said that, on one occasion, at Harriprashad's urging, his mother directed him to provide a rent receipt for $800.He complied, but did not recognize the receipt he created among those submitted by Harriprashad. Nonetheless, he acknowledged that, as a general matter, his parents maintained a rental unit on the second floor of their home and that he was not involved in renting the apartment before he took ownership of the premises.
The documents Harriprashad submitted to prove the value of several pieces of personal property are the next target for Metropolitan's authenticity attack. The attack also challenges the veracity of statements she made about these documents. Such information is material, Metropolitan contends, because Harriprashad's policy provides for reimbursement for lost or damaged items on an "Actual Cash Value basis," which the insurance contract defines as "the amount it would cost to repair or replace covered property with material of like kind and quality, less allowance for physical deterioration and depreciation including obsolescence." (Furlong Aff., Ex.1 at A-1, G-2-3.) To collect her settlement, Harriprashad had to "[p]repare an inventory of damaged or stolen personal property." (Furlong Aff., Ex. 1 at H-l.) In addition, she was required to "[a]ttach to the inventory all bills and other documents that substantiate the figures in the inventory." (Furlong Aff., Ex. 1 at H-l.)
As required by the contract, Harriprashad initiated her personal property claim by filing a proof of loss that included an inventory of the personal property destroyed in the fire. (Ajah Aff., Ex. E.) The inventory listed four items: a Sony television valued at $2689, a DVD/VCR valued at $550, a flex fan valued at $81.28, and a portable air conditioner valued at $650. (Ajah Aff., Ex. E.) Inaddition, Harriprashad provided two consecutively-numbered documents, allegedly from G&R Electronics ("G&R documents"), which listed six items by name and serial number: a Sony television valued at $2698, a DVD/VCR valued at $250, a flex fan value at $81.28, a portable Amana air conditioner valued at $649.17, a home theater valued at $646.17, and a Sony camera valued at $349.6 The first was dated June 19, 2007 and the second, June 30, 2007.
The parties dispute both the nature and authenticity of the G&R documents. The insurer protests that the documents—which bear a "paid" stamp—are receipts that Harriprashad forged. It substantiates its charge with the deposition testimony of Manny Gutflais, the owner of G&R Electronics, who stated that the documents did not bear the marks of receipts issued by his store. In addition, Metropolitan proffered a sworn statement of its investigator, William Furlong, who averred that he did not see the items listed on the G&R documents when he visited Harriprashad's residence. Rather, he found a DVD/VCR, home theater system, and television with model numbers that differed slightly from those listed, as well as a desk top fan (as opposed to a flex fan).7 Photographs of these items were shown to Gutflais, who testified that his store did not carry these precise models in June 2007, and, therefore, that they could not have been sold, nor receipts issued for them.
Given that this decision denies Metropolitan's motion for summary judgment, it should come as no surprise that, as with the rent receipts, Harriprashad offered a very different explanation for the electronic equipment receipts. Although she testified at her EUO that the documents included items that she both chose and purchased on June 19 and June 30, 2007, she stated at other points during the course of the three-part interrogation that she might have selected the items on one trip to the store and purchased them on another. She unequivocally denied forging either document. Lachana corroborated her mother's testimony, stating that she accompanied plaintiff at G&R Electronics on at least two occasions to select replacement electronics before any purchases were made. Lachana stated that her mother received written estimates from a store employee during these trips and that the estimates looked the same as the G&R documents shown to her during her deposition. Further, Lachana confirmed that the documents at issue included the specific types of items that Harriprashad went to G&R Electronics to select.
Hewing to its version of the facts, Metropolitan determined that Harriprashad breached her insurance contract by submitting a false claim, and denied coverage. As a result of that denial, Harriprashad alleges that she has incurred significant additional costs, including multiple municipal fines and lawsuits as well as the cost of the demolition of her unrepaired home that became unavoidable.
Harriprashad initiated this breach of contract action to compelpayment of her insurance benefits. The special damages she seeks are to cover the additional expenses incurred as a result of Metropolitan's bad faith denial of coverage.
Under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, a court must grant summary judgment upon finding, based on the pleadings, depositions, interrogatory answers, admissions, and affidavits that "there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c); Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 247 (1986). The initial burden is on the moving party to demonstrate the absence of a genuine issue of material fact. Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 323 (1986); Feingold v. New York, 366 F.3d 138, 148 (2d Cir. 2004). In determining whether the moving party has met this burden, a court must construe all evidence in a light most favorable to the nonmoving party, resolving all ambiguities and inferences in its favor. Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U.S. 574 (1986); Gibbs-Alfano v. Burton, 281 F.3d 12, 18 (2d Cir. 2002). However, "the mere existence of some alleged factual dispute between the parties will not defeat an otherwise properly supported motion for summary judgment; the requirement is that there be no genuine issue of material fact." Anderson, 477 U.S. at 247-48 (emphasis in original); Burt Rigid Box, Inc. v. Travelers Prop. Cas. Corp., 302 F.3d 83, 90 (2d Cir. 2002). Material facts are those, which given the substantive law, might affect the suit's outcome. Anderson, 477 U.S. at 248.
If the moving party makes a prima facie showing that there are no genuine issues of material fact, the nonmoving party must go beyond the pleadings and put forth "specific facts showing a genuine issue for trial." Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(e); Davis v. New York, 316 F.3d 93, 100 (2d Cir. 2002). In so doing, the nonmoving party may not rely on...
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