Pedro Castro-Rochez et al. v. Allied Trust Insurance Company

Summary

The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana granted Allied Trust Insurance Company’s motion to stay and extend the responsive pleading deadline under La. R.S. § 22:1892.2. The court held that the plaintiffs’ pre-suit proof-of-loss and demand package did not constitute the statute’s required cure period notice because it did not notify the insurer of an alleged statutory violation. The case concerns alleged Hurricane Francine property damage and the statutory pre-suit notice, stay, and pleading-extension requirements for catastrophic-loss claims.

Holdings

1. The July 15, 2025 demand package did not qualify as the statutory cure-period notice because it notified Allied Trust of the property damage but did not notify it of a violation of section 22:1892.2. At that time, the statutory payment deadlines had not yet elapsed, so plaintiffs could not have alleged that Allied Trust had violated the statute.
2. Allied Trust was entitled to the statutory sixty-day stay and thirty-day extension because plaintiffs filed suit before transmitting a qualifying cure-period notice.

Questions Presented

1. Whether plaintiffs' July 15, 2025 proof-of-loss and demand package constituted the cure-period notice required by Louisiana Revised Statutes section 22:1892.2(C) before bringing a statutory bad-faith action.
2. Whether Allied Trust was entitled to an automatic sixty-day stay of the action and an automatic extension of the responsive-pleading deadline because the cure-period notice was not transmitted before suit was filed.

Disposition

other