Insurance giant Geico won’t get the chance to persuade a federal appeals panel to shut down a class action lawsuit brought by a woman who claims the insurer misled consumers with its claims over how much money the insurer was giving back to them amid COVID-19 lockdowns.
On June 14, U.S. District Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman refused Geico’s request to certify a so-called “interlocutory appeal,” or an appeal asking an appellate court to rule on a specific legal question from an ongoing court proceeding.
Judge Coleman said she wouldn’t allow Geico to attempt to take the case to the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals simply because they had “a disagreement in how the Court applied the law to the facts of this case,” and not because of a real question over the meaning of certain language within the law.
Coleman’s ruling follows her decision in March, in which she refused Geico’s attempt to dismiss the class action brought against the insurer by attorneys with the firms of Stephan Zouras, of Chicago, and Nichols Kaster, of Minneapolis, on behalf of named plaintiff Briana Siegal.
In that ruling, Judge Coleman specifically found that Geico’s statements concerning its “Geico Giveback” program “had the capacity to deceive consumers” about how much money they were actually saving.
Geico was hit by class actions last summer, along with all other major insurers in Illinois, brought by lawyers representing customers with claims the insurers didn’t refund enough money to its customers when Illinois’ roads all but emptied after Gov. JB Pritzker issued stay-at-home orders at the onset of the state’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020.
Even though the insurers’ risk of covering losses dropped significantly, the lawsuits asserted Geico and other insurers, including Allstate, State Farm, American Family continued to charge “excessive premiums,” while rolling out programs that offered customers one-time refund payments or 15-25% premium credits ending in late spring or early summer.
A similar lawsuit against Geico was voluntarily dismissed in March, after Geico took it from Cook County Circuit Court to federal court.
Following that ruling, Geico asked Coleman to allow the company to ask the Seventh Circuit to weigh in on the question of whether Coleman’s ruling contradicts not only another judge’s ruling, but may conflict with precedent from the Seventh Circuit, as well.
Judge Coleman didn’t buy those arguments, however. She noted the opinions of other federal judges interpreting the same law aren’t binding on her. And, she did not see any “discrepancy” between her March ruling and prior decisions from the Seventh Circuit appeals court.
Geico is represented in the action by attorneys Lisa T. Scruggs and Ronald M. Lepinskas, of the firm of Duane Morris, of Chicago.