{"id":2135,"date":"2013-09-27T06:25:41","date_gmt":"2013-09-27T12:25:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.myconstructionexpert.com\/blog\/?p=2135"},"modified":"2013-09-24T09:26:27","modified_gmt":"2013-09-24T15:26:27","slug":"can-your-fee-dispute-rise-to-the-level-of-unfair-competition-maybe-but-not-this-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myconstructionexpert.com\/blog\/can-your-fee-dispute-rise-to-the-level-of-unfair-competition-maybe-but-not-this-time\/","title":{"rendered":"Can Your Fee Dispute Rise to the Level of Unfair Competition? Maybe; but Not This Time."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Gary Bresee &#8211; September 16, 2013<\/p>\n<p>A fee dispute between Travelers, its contractor\/insured and the insured&#8217;s counsel, is not your run of the mill fee dispute.\u00a0 Travelers alleges the existence of an illicit rate\u00a0agreement between the contractor and its lawyers whereby the lawyers allegedly billed\u00a0Travelers at a higher rate than the firm actually charged the contractor\/insured.\u00a0 Travelers property\u00a0Casualty Company of\u00a0America\u00a0v. Centex Homes et al. (Case Nos. 3:13-cv-00088 and 4:12-cv-00371, Northern District of California).<\/p>\n<p>Centex Homes, Travelers&#8217; insured, was represented by Newmeyer &amp; Dillon LLP in several construction defect actions arising out of\u00a0multiple housing developments.\u00a0 Travelers agreed to defend Centex in the underlying cases.\u00a0 However, on\u00a0May 11, 2011, Travelers uncovered the existence of the illicit rate agreement between Centex and Newmeyer.\u00a0 Travelers sued Centex and\u00a0Newmeyer for, inter alia,\u00a0fraud, breach of fiduciary duty and\u00a0unfair competition.<\/p>\n<p>Judge Samuel Conti recently ruled, however, that:<\/p>\n<p>The unfair competition claim should be dismissed due to the lack of any impact on the general public &#8212; one of the\u00a0requirements of the fraud prong of the UCL;<\/p>\n<p>The fraud claim should be narrowed to include only billing\u00a0invoices submitted prior to May 11, 2011 &#8212; the\u00a0date Travelers discovered\u00a0the illicit agreement; and<\/p>\n<p>The breach of fiduciary duty claims can only apply to the period after Travelers agreed to defend Centex, since prior\u00a0to that date Newmeyer owed no fiduciary duty to Travelers.<\/p>\n<p>via <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jdsupra.com\/legalnews\/can-your-fee-dispute-rise-to-the-level-o-29926\/?utm_source=LU_Emails\">Can Your Fee Dispute Rise to the Level of Unfair Competition? Maybe; but Not This Time. | Barger &amp; Wolen &#8211; JDSupra<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Gary Bresee &#8211; September 16, 2013 A fee dispute between Travelers, its contractor\/insured and the insured&#8217;s counsel, is not your run of the mill fee dispute.\u00a0 Travelers alleges the existence of an illicit rate\u00a0agreement between the contractor and its lawyers whereby the lawyers allegedly billed\u00a0Travelers at a higher rate than the firm actually charged the&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.myconstructionexpert.com\/blog\/can-your-fee-dispute-rise-to-the-level-of-unfair-competition-maybe-but-not-this-time\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Can Your Fee Dispute Rise to the Level of Unfair Competition? Maybe; but Not This Time.<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[14,9,4],"tags":[19,437,3],"class_list":["post-2135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-construction-2","category-construction-contracts","category-construction-defects","tag-construction-defects-2","tag-fee-dispute","tag-insurance-claims","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Can Your Fee Dispute Rise to the Level of Unfair Competition? 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