Driver's suit against his insurer for breach of contract
Greenberger v. GEICO Gen. Ins. Co., 09-1603, concerned a challenge to the district court's dismissal of plaintiff's statutory consumer fraud claim and an
entry of summary judgment in favor of the insurer on the breach of
contract and common law fraud claims, in plaintiff's suit against his insurer for damage to his automobile from an automobile collision.
In affirming, the court held that all of plaintiff's claims are
foreclosed by the Illinois Supreme Court's decision in Avery v. State
Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co., 835, N.E.2d 801 (Ill. 2005), which
established the common-sense proposition that a policyholder's suit
against his insurer for breach of its promise to restore his
collision-damages car to its preloss condition cannot succeed without an
examination of the car, and here, because plaintiff gave away his car,
he cannot prove that what the insurer paid him was inadequate to restore
the car to its preloss condition. Further, Avery also made clear that
fraud claims must contain something more than reformulated allegations
of a contractual breach, and here, plaintiff's breach of contract
allegations are dressed up in the language of fraud, which cannot
support statutory or common law fraud claims.