Practice Areas
Insurance Coverage and Bad Faith
Life, Health, Disability and ERISA
Class Action and Mass Tort

AREAS OF PRACTICE

Elise Klein serves as Chair of the life, health, disability & ERISA department. She has more than twenty years of experience in insurance and health insurance law. Ms. Klein primarily handles the following types of matters:

• Health insurance
  • Health care service plans
  • PPOs
  • Coverage
  • Rescission
  • Fraud
  • Collections
  • ERISA
  • COBRA
  • Cal-COBRA
  • Medicare
  • Medi-Cal (California Medicaid)
• Property and casualty insurance
  • Coverage
  • Coverage litigation
  • "Bad faith" litigation
  • Policy drafting

LECTURES

• Speaker, American Conference Institute Premier Forum on Defending and Managing ERISA Litigation, October, 2009

PUBLICATIONS

• Author, Challenges and Strategies for Keeping Up-to- Date on Recent Developments in Health Care Law, Aspatore Books, 2009

LEGAL EXPERIENCE

Representative cases include:

• Israel-Curley v. California Fair Plan (2005) 126 Cal.App.4th 123 [participation in class action settlement barred suit seeking additional recovery for Northridge earthquake insurance benefits; class counsel represented all class members]
• California Fair Plan Assn. v. Superior Court (2004) 115 Cal.App.4th 158 [claim properly denied when insured refuses to appear for examination under oath; case dismissed following writ petition]
• Main Fiber Products, Inc. v. Morgan & Franz Ins. Agency (1999) 73 Cal.App.4th 1130 [failure to challenge by writ an adverse determination of a good faith settlement motion precludes later appeal challenging determination]
• Charnaux v. Health Net (N.D. Cal. 2004) 2004 WL 2645976 [health care service plan properly refused to reinstate terminated Cal-COBRA member who failed to pay premiums timely]
• Bank of America Nat. Trust and Sav. Ass'n v. Allstate Ins. Co. (C.D. Cal. 1999) 29 F.Supp.2d 1129 [manner in which check made proper and unambiguous; delivery of check to one payee proper]

EDUCATION

• Hastings College of the Law, Juris Doctor, 1983
• Pomona College, Bachelor of Arts, 1980