Barbey v. State Farm General Insurance Company

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
• Decided: December 9, 2025
• Docket: 24-5424
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS DEC 9 2025 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

JONATHAN BARBEY, an No. 24-5424 individual; ARIEL BARBEY, an individual, D.C. No. 2:23-cv-08924-MWF-SSC Plaintiffs - Appellants,

v. MEMORANDUM*

STATE FARM GENERAL INSURANCE COMPANY,

Defendant - Appellee,

and

DOES,

Defendant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of California Michael W. Fitzgerald, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted November 17, 2025 Pasadena, California

Before: WARDLAW, BERZON, and MILLER, Circuit Judges.

Jonathan and Ariel Barbey (“the Barbeys”) appeal the district court’s grant

* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. of summary judgement in favor of State Farm. We have jurisdiction under 28

U.S.C. § 1291, and we affirm.

We review a district court’s grant of summary judgement de novo. Lowry v.

City of San Diego, 858 F.3d 1248, 1254 (9th Cir. 2017) (en banc). Summary

judgment is appropriate “if the movant shows that there is no genuine dispute as to

any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Fed.

R. Civ. P. 56(a). We must “view the evidence in the light most favorable to the

nonmoving party” to determine whether there is any genuine issue of material fact

and whether the district court properly applied the relevant substantive law.

Johnson v. Ryan, 55 F.4th 1167, 1179 (9th Cir. 2022) (citation omitted). Federal

courts exercising diversity jurisdiction apply state law when interpreting an

insurance policy. Stanford Univ. Hosp. v. Fed. Ins. Co., 174 F.3d 1077, 1083 (9th

Cir. 1999).

1. The district court correctly held that State Farm’s reconsideration of

the Barbeys’ homeowner’s insurance claim for losses allegedly caused by a water

leak on February 13, 2022, following its formal denial of the claim on March 31,

2022, did not equitably toll the one-year contractual limitations period.1 The one-

1 For the same reasons, the district court also correctly held that the Barbeys’ homeowner’s insurance claim based on the events of December 21, 2022, was not equitably tolled beyond State Farm’s formal denial of the claim on January 7, 2022.

2 24-5424 year limitations period in a homeowner’s insurance policy is “equitably tolled from

the time the insured files a timely notice [of his claim], pursuant to policy notice

provisions, to the time the insurer formally denies the claim in writing.”

Prudential-LMI Com. Ins. v. Super. Ct., 51 Cal. 3d. 674, 678 (1990). However,

“once an unequivocal denial has been made, the insured’s later requests for

reconsideration . . . do not extend the period of equitable tolling.” Singh v. Allstate

Ins. Co., 63 Cal. App. 4th 135, 148 (1998). “A statement of willingness to

reconsider does not render a denial equivocal.” Migliore v. Mid-Century Ins. Co.,

97 Cal. App. 4th 592, 605 (2002) (citing Singh, 63 Cal. App. 4th at 147–48).

Here, State Farm’s reconsideration of the Barbeys’ claim did not extend the

period of equitable tolling. Following State Farm’s unequivocal denial of the

Barbeys’ claim on March 31, 2022, the Barbeys submitted additional information

for State Farm to consider, and State Farm reinvestigated the Barbeys’ property at

the request of the Barbeys’ attorney. However, State Farm reiterated its denial to

the Barbeys and never told the Barbeys that it was retracting its denial or reopening

their claim. See Singh, 63 Cal. App. 4th at 142 (“The justifications for equitable

tolling are absent, once the carrier has initially denied the claim.”). Moreover,

while the Barbeys’ claims appeared “open” at times in State Farm’s internal

servers, the district court correctly concluded that the “status of a claim in [State

Farm’s internal] claim files [does not] negate[] a formal denial letter.”

3 24-5424 2. Ashou v. Liberty Mutual Fire Insurance Co., 138 Cal. App. 4th 748

(2006), is not to the contrary. Ashou considered equitable tolling in the context of

California Code of Civil Procedure § 340.9, which the California legislature

enacted in 2000 to revive, for one year, time-barred claims related to the 1994

Northridge earthquake, due to the “rampant mishandling” of these claims by

insurers. Id. at 754, 761. Ashou held that “[i]f an insurer, in light of that change in

the law, acquiesced in an insured’s request to reconsider the claim,” equitable

tolling applied to the reconsideration period because the “reconsideration process

should be allowed to continue its course without being prematurely halted by a

lawsuit.” Id. at 764. This case, in contrast, is governed by Singh, where equitable

tolling did not apply to the reconsideration period because there was no “change in

the law” and “little . . . changed between the insurer’s initial denial of the claim

and the insured’s request for reconsideration.” Id.2

3. The Barbeys forfeited any argument that State Farm is equitably

estopped from invoking the one-year contractual limitations period. As Singh

explained, “the policies underlying equitable tolling cease to exist once the carrier

has received notice, investigated the claim, and denied coverage,” and “if the

carrier’s conduct after denying coverage . . . induces the policyholder to forbear

2 Because Ashou does not control this case, we need not address the question of whether Ashou’s principles extend beyond the context of section 340.9 and, if so, how far they extend.

4 24-5424 from filing suit, the doctrine[] of . . . estoppel will avoid injustice on that score.”

63 Cal. App. 4th at 145 (emphasis added). However, the Barbeys did not raise

equitable estoppel before the district court or in their Opening Brief, and their

counsel expressly disclaimed reliance on equitable estoppel at oral argument in this

court. See Hilao v. Est. of Marcos, 393 F.3d 987, 993 (9th Cir. 2004) (“A party . . .

is bound by concessions made . . . at oral argument.”).

AFFIRMED.

5 24-5424