In 2001 the Court of Appeals addressed the viability of three class actions brought under CPLR Article 9 involving the rights of insureds, lesbian medical students and aliens seeking Medicaid benefits.
In Gaidon v. Guardian Life Insurance Company,[1]� the Court of Appeals revisited “vanishing premium” life insurance policies where the premiums never seemed to vanish.[2]� This time the Court held that General Business Law [GBL] 349 is broader than common law fraud ["encompasses a significantly wider range of deceptive business practices that were never previously condemned by decisional law"] and, hence, GBL 349 claims are governed by a three-year period of limitations [CPLR 214(2)]. In addition, the Court held that GBL 349 claims accrue when the consumer “has been injured by a deceptive act” which in this case meant when insureds “were first called upon to pay additional premiums beyond the date” they were to have vanished. In yet another “vanishing premium” class action, Goshen v. Mutual Life Insurance Company,[3]� the Appellate Division held, among other things, that non-New York consumers who entered into insurance contracts outside New York State were beyond the coverage of GBL 349.
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