Republic Indemnity Co. v. Superior Court

Petitioner Republic Indemnity Company (Republic) seeks a writ of mandate to overturn respondent court’s order denying its motion for summary judgment and granting the motion for summary adjudication of issues of real party in interest Alpha Therapeutic Corporation (Alpha). We issued an alternative writ of mandate to review respondent court’s order that the following two issues were without substantial controversy: (1) Republic “had and continues to have a duty to defend Alpha in the Fisher lawsuit” and (2) “[t]he Fisher lawsuit contains allegations of disparate impact employment discrimination.” (Issue seven.)

The central question in this proceeding is whether as a matter of law Republic was obligated to defend Alpha in a wrongful termination action under an “employers’ liability endorsement” of a workers’ compensation policy. We conclude that at the time Alpha tendered its defense to Republic it was evident that the employee-plaintiff was proceeding under a “failure to reasonably accommodate” theory which was potentially covered under the Republic policy. Accordingly, Republic was obligated to assume the defense of that action. In the unpublished portion of this opinion…