Alicia Gurries

Associate

San Francisco

(415) 593-9618

(415) 692-3477

Alicia Gurries is experienced in handling business and construction defect litigation, subrogation and contribution actions and declaratory relief and bad faith litigation, including complex law and motion work. Alicia also provides coverage analysis of complex first- and third-party claims. Alicia has extensive experience in all phases of litigation including mediation and arbitration.

Publications

Avoid Creating Coverage By Estoppel, Waiver & Forfeiture: California [Avoiding Insurance Bad Faith Blog]

May 19, 2021

Waiver, estoppel and forfeiture are doctrines on which insureds often rely to try to create coverage outside the terms of the insurance policy. Insureds will often assert that they are entitled to such extra-contractual coverage based entirely on how the insurer handled the claim. But under...

A Jury Must Find An Insurer Acted Unreasonably In Order To Find Bad Faith Failure to Settle [Avoiding Insurance Bad Faith Blog]

April 27, 2021

On March 8, 2021 the California Court of Appeal, reversing a $10 million verdict against Farmers, found that a jury must specifically find unreasonable acts by an insurer to support a “failure to settle” bad faith finding. Pinto v. Farmers Ins. Exch., No. B295742, __ Cal. App. 5th __, 2021 WL...

Texas Amends Insurance Code In Response To Weather Claims [Avoiding Insurance Bad Faith Blog]

August 14, 2017

On May 26, 2017, Texas Governor Greg Abbot signed into law Texas House Bill 1774/Senate Bill 10. The new law makes changes to the Texas Insurance Code that will impact the way in which weather claims are brought and how those claims may be defended. The new law becomes effective on September 1,...

Ninth Circuit Finds Plausible Claim of Damages Avoids Dismissal of Bad Faith Lawsuit [Avoiding Insurance Bad Faith Blog]

November 01, 2016

Can an insurer be potentially liable for breach of contract or bad faith where the insured can only plead a plausible claim of damages? The Ninth Circuit has answered “yes” in a recent decision in the case of Beverly Burton v. The Prudential Insurance Company of America, No. 14-56721, 2016 U.S. App....

Cumis Counsel: An Insurer’s Right To Dispute Coverage Does Not Automatically Trigger A Right to Cumis Counsel [Avoiding Insurance Bad Faith Blog]

October 21, 2016

Recently, once again, a California appeals court weighed in on the scope of the right to Cumis counsel and the meaning of Cal. Civil Code §2860. St. Paul Mercury Insurance Company v. McMillin Homes Construction, Inc., No. 15cv1548 JM (BLM), 2016 WL 5464553 (S.D. Cal.) (decided on September 29,...

Production of Insurance Company Claim Files In Bad Faith Litigation: Three Years After Cedell, Where Are We? [Avoiding Insurance Bad Faith Blog]

October 07, 2016

Bad faith litigation is complex and costly. In these types of cases, the discovery process often sets the initial tone of the lawsuit and the request for production of the insurer’s claim file is automatic. Typically, the insurer’s response is to produce a heavily redacted copy of its claim file,...

Education

  • Santa Clara University, J.D., 2000
  • California State University-Hayward, B.S., 1997
  • California