IN THE DISTRICT IN AND FOR OKLAHOMA COUNTY
STATE OF OKLAHOMA
SHARON PETERS, an individual )
Plaintiff,
v. )
LIBERTY MUTUAL INSURANCE COMPANY; )
Defendant.
Case No. CJ-2026-1682
FILED IN DISTRICT COURT
OKLAHOMA COUNTY
MAR - 6 2026
RICK WARREN
COURT CLERK
136
PETITION
COMES NOW Plaintiff Sharon Peters and for her causes of action against Defendant Liberty Mutual Insurance Company, alleges and states as follows:
PARTIES, JURISDICTION, AND VENUE
1. Plaintiff Sharon Peters is an individual, resident, and citizen of Oklahoma County, State of Oklahoma.
2. Plaintiff lived in a single-family home at 4220 N.W. 149th Street, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma 73134 from the time she purchased said home in the year 2000 until 2024.
3. Defendant, Liberty Mutual Insurance Company, was incorporated in a state of than the State of Oklahoma and has its principal place of business in a state other than the State of Oklahoma.
4. The transactions and occurrences that are the subject of this lawsuit took place in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma County, State of Oklahoma.
5. For the reasons set forth above, jurisdiction and venue are proper in Oklahoma County, State of Oklahoma.
FACTS AND CIRCUMSTANCES RELEVANT TO ALL CAUSES OF ACTION
Plaintiff hereby adopts, incorporates by reference, and realleges the allegations contained in paragraphs 1 through 5 of her Petition as if fully set forth herein.
6. During the period Plaintiff owned her property in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, she insured said property with a policy of insurance purchased from Liberty Mutual Insurance Company.
7. Plaintiff’s insurance policy with Liberty Mutual Insurance Company is designated as H3V-291-826492-40 3 7.
8. Plaintiff’s aforementioned insurance policy with Liberty Mutual Insurance Company was in full force and effect at the time of the covered loss described hereinbelow.
9. Plaintiff’s home and personal property were damaged by a storm on or around December 4, 2023.
10. The damage sustained by Plaintiff to her property was covered under the above-referenced policy of insurance with Liberty Mutual Insurance Company.
11. After the December 2023 storm, Plaintiff timely reported her covered loss to Liberty Mutual and expected Liberty Mutual to conduct a thorough investigation, evaluation of the loss and promptly pay any amounts owed under her insurance contract and its attendant duty of good faith and fair dealing.
12. Defendant Liberty Mutual Insurance Company assigned claim number 056115700-01 to Plaintiff’s claim for damages to her property.
13. Plaintiff complied with all conditions precedent for coverage to be provided for the covered loss of her property, including payment of any premiums due under the above-referenced policy of insurance with Liberty Mutual.
14. Plaintiff gave Defendant Liberty Mutual Insurance Company proper and timely notice of her loss and claim for damages to her property.
15. Plaintiff cooperated with any requests made by Liberty Mutual Insurance Company and/or its representatives in connection with her above-referenced claim.
16. Plaintiff made her property available for any inspections requested by Defendant Liberty Mutual Insurance Company.
17. From the time the loss was reported to March 2024, our client’s property languished unrepaired.
18. For its part, Defendant Liberty Mutual Insurance Company determined that while Plaintiff’s home and property was indisputably damaged, the damage was not all the result of the hailfall on or around December 4, 2023 but rather “wear and tear, blistering, nail pops and maintenance issues”—albeit in an amount which did not exceed Ms. Peters’ deductible, once recoverable deprecation and sums paid when incurred were subtracted from the woefully low amount Liberty Mutual assigned to the roof loss.
19. Defendant Liberty Mutual Insurance Company denied Plaintiff’s claim via letter on or about March 8, 2024.
20. Defendant Liberty Mutual Insurance Company’s untenable position reflected in the March 8, 2024 denial letter simultaneously acknowledges covered damages, yet summarily denies coverage for the damage to Plaintiff’s roof.
21. For more than three (3) months, Plaintiff’s roof remained damaged and unrepaired, preventing her from being able to complete a sale transaction on the subject property and causing her to incur related damages.
22. Left with essentially no choice, Plaintiff sought and received the concurring opinions of several roofing professionals that the roof is damaged to the point of totality and that the damages are related to the storm loss occurring on or around December 4, 2023.
23. In so doing, Plaintiff expended considerable time, effort, and monetary resources to do that which Liberty Mutual should have done, yet failed to do, with respect to the roof loss at issue.
24. Ultimately, Plaintiff was left with no other option than to utilize her own resources to make the needed repairs and protect her investment in this real property.
25. Liberty Mutual’s delay, failure to properly investigate / evaluate Ms. Peters’ loss, efforts to underpay and/or not pay are all tantamount to denial and per se bad faith under Oklahoma law.
26. Following Defendants’ denial of Plaintiff’s claim in March 2024 (and as a result of Defendants’ bad faith conduct related to said denial) and despite Plaintiff’s best efforts to mitigate the loss during this time, both the exterior and the interior of the home have continued to worsen until Plaintiff undertook to complete the necessary repairs with her own resources.
CAUSES OF ACTION
Plaintiff hereby adopts, incorporates by reference, and realleges the allegations contained in paragraphs 1 through 26 of her Petition as if fully set forth herein.
27. Plaintiff was at all pertinent times insured under a policy of insurance issued by Defendant Liberty Mutual Insurance Company.
28. Plaintiff submitted covered claims under her above-referenced policy of insurance with Liberty Mutual Insurance Company.
29. Defendants unreasonably delayed Plaintiff’s claim for approximately three (3) months prior to ultimately denying coverage.
30. Defendants breached its contract with Plaintiff by virtue of the foregoing.
31. As a result of Defendants’ breach of its contract, Plaintiff has been damaged.
32. At the time of the loss, the facts of the loss and of coverages available to Plaintiff made it indisputable that Plaintiff was owed policy benefits under a number of coverages set forth in the subject policy.
33. Policy benefits due to Plaintiff were not (and still have not been) promptly, fairly, adequately, and equitably paid.
34. Plaintiff has a single cause of action to recover for her insured losses, but she is currently advancing their claim on contract and bad faith theories by seeking indemnity for her losses under the contract together with appropriate damages for Defendant Liberty Mutual Insurance Company’s bad faith refusals to provide benefits owed under their policy. Taylor v. State Farm Fire & Casualty Co., 1999 OK 44, 981 P.2d 1253.
35. Claim payments known to be due to Plaintiff were unreasonably delayed. The manner in which Plaintiff’s claim was handled was in violation of Defendant Liberty Mutual Insurance Company’s duty of good faith and fair dealing to the Plaintiff.
36. Defendant Liberty Mutual Insurance Company breached the terms of Plaintiff’s policy and implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing in its handling of Plaintiff’s claim, and as a matter of routine claim practice in handling similar claims, by the acts and omissions discussed below.
37. Defendant Liberty Mutual Insurance Company refused to pay the full, accurate and proper amount for repair and replacement of the property damaged by this covered loss.
38. Defendant Liberty Mutual Insurance Company’s evaluation of the work, materials and costs required to properly repair and replace said property is unreasonable and arbitrary.
39. Defendant Liberty Mutual Insurance Company’s evaluation ignored obviously covered damage sustained by Plaintiff’s home and personal property.
40. For the same reasons, Defendant Liberty Mutual Insurance Company’s purported investigation of damage sustained by Plaintiff’s home and personal property was inadequate and improper.
41. In light of the obviously visible damage sustained by Plaintiff’s home and personal property, Defendant Liberty Mutual Insurance Company deliberately denied benefits owed to Plaintiff in violation of its contractual and good faith obligations.
42. For the same reasons, Defendant Liberty Mutual Insurance Company failed and/or refused to properly inspect or evaluate Plaintiff’s property or the damage caused by this covered loss.
43. Through the above-referenced acts and omissions, Defendant Liberty Mutual Insurance Company failed and/or refused to consider Plaintiff’s reasonable expectations of coverage for damage caused by a loss covered under the insurance policy.
44. Defendant Liberty Mutual Insurance Company’s conduct in the denial of benefits owed to Plaintiff demonstrates a consistent, willful, pervasive and abusive scheme to deny insurance benefits owed to Oklahomans after covered loss.
45. Upon information and belief, Defendant Liberty Mutual Insurance Company has claims management and/or claims handling directives leading to the systematic denial and/or underpayment of covered claims across the State of Oklahoma.
46. Upon information and belief, Plaintiff alleges it is the corporate goal of the Defendant Liberty Mutual Insurance Company to increase their profits by reducing, delaying, or avoiding the payment of claims.
47. Upon information and belief, Plaintiff further alleges that the actions of Defendant Liberty Mutual Insurance Company during the handling of this claim were not isolated events, but rather were consistent with approved company-wide practices or policies which reward and encourage the systematic reduction, delay, or avoidance of the payment of claims.
48. Plaintiff further alleges upon information and belief that, in furtherance of these company-wide practices or policies, Defendant Liberty Mutual Insurance Company: (a) trains their employees in a manner that is designed to reduce, delay, or avoid payment of claims; (b) sets goals for their employees that are designed to reduce, delay, or avoid payment of claims; (c) measures results and reward the performance of employees who reduce, delay, or avoid payment of claims; and/or (d) puts in place executive compensation plans to provide incentives to executives to arbitrarily reduce claim payments in order to earn bonuses in the form of cash, stock, and stock options.
49. Defendant Liberty Mutual Insurance Company’s claims management and/or claims handling directives resulted in a significant decrease in claims paid by Liberty Mutual Insurance Company.
50. Defendant Liberty Mutual Insurance Company is aware of such claims management and/or claims handling directives and continues such pattern and practice of wrongful denials.
51. Defendant Liberty Mutual Insurance Company’s refusal to pay benefits owed to Plaintiff for obvious damage sustained by their home and personal property violates its duty to issue payments when liability for benefits becomes reasonably clear.
52. The denial of any benefits to Plaintiff for this loss, in spite of covered damage being easily visible, violates Defendant Liberty Mutual Insurance Company’s duty to pay the amount required to properly repair and replace damaged materials and personal property.
53. Defendant Liberty Mutual Insurance Company’s conduct described above constitutes a routine claim practice of refusing and failing to properly investigate, evaluate and pay covered claims.
54. As a direct result of Defendant Liberty Mutual Insurance Company’s unlawful and improper acts and omissions, Plaintiff suffered financial loss, mental distress, frustration, embarrassment and/or loss of reputation that are elements of damage recoverable under Oklahoma law. OUJI 22.4.
55. Defendant Liberty Mutual Insurance Company’s acts and omissions toward Plaintiff constitute reckless disregard of her rights and intentional (with malice) violations of Oklahoma’s duty of good faith and fair dealing.
56. Therefore, Oklahoma law mandates an award of punitive damages in Plaintiff’s favor under 23 O.S. § 9.1.
57. In connection with the above and foregoing, Plaintiff seeks damages in excess of the amount required for diversity jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1332.
WHEREFORE, Plaintiff requests actual damages against Defendants State Farm Fire and Casualty Company and State Farm General Insurance Company, Inc., and Chad K. Lee in excess of the amount required to diversity jurisdiction under Section 1332 of Title 28 of the United States
Code, punitive damages, pre-judgment interest, post-judgment interest, court costs, attorneys’ fees, and any further relief this Court deems just and proper under the circumstances.
Respectfully submitted,
[Signature]
Justin D. Meek, OBA No. 31294
Benjamin R. Grubb, OBA No. 31569
Kenneth G. Cole, OBA No. 11792
DeWitt, Paruolo & Meek, PLLC
P.O. Box 138800
Oklahoma City, OK 73113
PH: 405-705-3600
FAX: 405-705-2573
Email:
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
ATTORNEYS FOR PLAINTIFF
ATTORNEY LIEN CLAIMED
JURY TRIAL DEMANDED
