As Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Michael Hiltzik lays out in his column today in the Los Angeles Times, the world’s biggest oil and gas companies have wasted over 500 hours of Consumer Watchdog’s legal time over the last 18 months trying to get a peek at how we know what we know about the oil industry.  Thank you to Consumer Watchdog staff attorney Danny Sternberg for all his hard work defending the organization.

Los Angeles, CA -- Farmers Insurance systematically overcharged its most loyal, longtime California customers from 2008 to 2018, according to evidence uncovered as part of an investigation ordered by the California Insurance Commissioner. Now, with a public hearing scheduled for June and facing millions of dollars in civil damages and penalties, Farmers and its affiliate, Mid-Century Insurance, are urging a Los Angeles Superior Court to stop the agency’s investigation.

Los Angeles, CA -- A state Court of Appeal in Orange County has upheld $27 million in civil penalties imposed by former Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones against Mercury Insurance Company for falsely claiming premium overcharges its agents tacked on top of its approved rates were “broker fees.”

A California court has rejected a request by State Farm, the nation’s largest insurance company, to conceal the financial arrangements between its $168 billion parent company, based in Bloomington, Indiana, and its California subsidiary, which sells homeowners insurance and claims it’s in financial trouble. 

Los Angeles, CA – Transamerica Life Insurance Company has agreed to settle a class action lawsuit brought on behalf of policyholders across the United States alleging that Transamerica improperly increased the monthly charges that the company withdrew from the accounts of policyholders who own certain “universal life” insurance policies.

A California judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by Aetna against the non-profit Consumer Watchdog and law firm Whatley Kallas, LLP over Aetna’s disclosure of members’ HIV status. The Ruling came in response to the groups’ filing of Anti-SLAPP ("Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation”) motions.

UPDATE:  If you are a victim of a recent LA DWP blackout we want to hear your story. Please email us at: [email protected]

Los Angeles, CA -- A Los Angeles taxpayer filed a lawsuit against the City of Los Angeles and the Department of Water and Power (“DWP”) alleging that the City and DWP converted nearly $242 million in ratepayer funds into an illegal tax, according to Consumer Watchdog.

Los Angeles, CA -- This morning, health insurance Goliath Aetna sued the nonprofit Consumer Watchdog and Whatley Kallas LLP, a consumer law firm, who’ve sued Aetna for its improper and negligent disclosure of the HIV positive status of thousands of its members.  The disclosure was made as a result of Aetna’s use of a window pane envelope that was sent to communicate a member-wide business practice change Aetna agreed to make in order to resolve an earlier lawsuit brought by the consumer advocates.   

CVS, one of the nation’s largest pharmaceutical benefit managers, disclosed the HIV status of 6,000 patients enrolled in the Ohio HIV Drug Assistance Program (“OhDAP”), which provides assistance to low-income patients, according to a new class action lawsuit.

Download the complaint here.