Opinion ID: 4552152
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Insured ECI Responds

Text: Insured ECI responded, through counsel, asking its insurer AEGIS to reconsider its position. The majority of ECI’s response was dedicated to rebutting AEGIS’s contention that the claims themselves fell under one or more of the Policy’s exclusions from coverage. ECI’s response also addressed AEGIS’s claim that none of the requested relief constituted a covered “Loss” as defined in the Policy. ECI argued that AEGIS’s letter falsely assumed that “the Lawsuit only seeks equitable nonmonetary relief and treble damages.” ECI noted that the Georgia statute limits a tenant’s recovery to “the sum erroneously withheld” if the “withholding was not intentional and resulted from a bona fide error which occurred in spite of the existence of procedures reasonably designed to avoid such errors.” See O.C.G.A. § 44-7-35(c). As a result, ECI pointed out, “the [c]ourt may not necessarily award treble damages and could limit relief to compensatory only.” 9 Case: 19-11114 Date Filed: 07/30/2020 Page: 10 of 32 Such purely compensatory damages would fall within the Policy’s definition of “Loss.”6