"We agreeth with the trial court" that the wine buyer is out of luck

Neither of these recent cases is a UCL or a class action matter, but I can't resist sharing them.  Here is the Fourth Appellate District, Division Three, in an opinion handed down last week:

“O thou invisible spirit of wine, if thou hast no name to be known by, let us call thee devil!”  (Shakespeare, Othello, act II, scene 3.)

Yea verily, we are presented with a most unfortunate tale of a villainous wine dealer who sold millions of dollars’ worth of counterfeit wine to an unsuspecting wine collector.  When the wine collector discovered the fraud, he filed an insurance claim based on his “Valuable Possessions” property insurance policy.  The insurance company denied the claim.  The wine collector sued for breach of contract.  The trial court ruled in favor of the insurance company, sustaining its demurrer.

We agreeth with the trial court; the wine collector suffered a financial loss, but there was no loss to property that was covered by the property insurance policy.  In other words, the wine collector is stuck with the devil wine without recompense.  A Shakespearean tragedy, to be sure.

....

Finally, we can merely offereth to Doyle this small piece of wisdom from the Bard of Avon:  “The robbed that smiles steals something from the thief.”  (Shakespeare, Othello, act I, scene 3.)

Doyle v. Fireman's Fund Ins. Co., ___ Cal.App.5th ___ (Mar. 7, 2018) (slip op. at 2, 8) (emphasis in original).  Somehow I doubt Doyle feels very consoled by that.  On the other hand, he does have standing to assert a UCL claim against the fraudster:

Simply stated: labels matter. The marketing industry is based on the premise that labels matter — that consumers will choose one product over another similar product based on its label and various tangible and intangible qualities they may come to associate with a particular source.  ....  Whether a wine is from a particular locale may matter to the oenophile who values subtle regional differences.  ....

....  Two wines might to almost any palate taste indistinguishable — but to serious oenophiles, the difference between one year and the next, between grapes from one valley and another nearby, might be sufficient to carry with it real economic differences in how much they would pay.

Kwikset Corp. v. Superior Court (Benson), 51 Cal.4th 310, 329, 330 (2011).  The fraudster in Doyle "for many years ... had apparently been filling empty wine bottles with his own wine blend and had been affixing counterfeit labels to the bottles." In other words, the case presents a textbook "fraudulent" prong claim. 

Back to Shakespeare.  Here is Justice Cuéllar, writing for the Supreme Court two days before Doyle:

Like “cloud-capp’d towers,” “gorgeous palaces,” and perhaps someday even “the great globe itself,” many arrangements endure for some time but eventually dissolve.¹   So too with certain law partnerships –– including firms that are retained, before they dissolve, to handle matters on an hourly basis.

¹          “The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces, / The solemn temples, the great globe itself, / Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve.”  (Shakespeare, The Tempest, act IV, scene I, lines 152–154.) 

Heller Ehrman LLP v. Davis Wright Tremaine LLP, ___ Cal.5th ____ (Mar. 5, 2018) (slip op. at 1).  Let us hope for better things for "the great globe itself."