In Part I of this series, we explored the differences between institutional and non-institutional bad faith. For claims of institutional bad faith, plaintiffs often attempt to demonstrate a pattern and practice by offering evidence of claims of other policyholders. Unlike claims of institutional bad faith premised on the insurer’s policies and procedures, “other claims” allegations do not require knowledge of the insurer’s motives or internal programs, but instead rely on evidence of repeated behavior to make the threshold showing of bad faith. When a plaintiff attempts to offer specific factual allegations relating to other policyholders in order to demonstrate a general business practice, the relevant inquiries relate to any actual similarities between the claims and the threshold at which the…
Monthly Archives: November 2019
Defending Institutional Bad Faith Claims, Part III – Proof by Other Claims
Posted in Bad Faith
Defending Institutional Bad Faith Claims, Part II – Focusing on Plausibility
In Part I of this series, we discussed institutional bad faith and best practices for insurers to minimize the risk of these costly and intrusive lawsuits. In Part II, we will focus on cutting discovery off at the pleadings—by narrowing the plaintiff’s claim, you limit the scope of relevance in discovery. Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(b), “[p]arties may obtain discovery regarding any non-privileged matter that is relevant to any party’s claim or defense and proportional to the needs of the case….” Plaintiffs often allege institutional bad faith by providing a small amount of information pertaining to the company at large, and then making significant inferences and conclusions and offering those inferences as factual allegations. A skilled attorney can…
Posted in Bad Faith
Defending Institutional Bad Faith Claims, Part I – A Primer on Institutional Bad Faith
Broadly speaking, there are two types of bad faith claims that may be alleged against an insurance company—traditional or non-institutional bad faith, and institutional bad faith. For the former, a policyholder would seek to hold an insurer liable for its acts or omissions that directly and adversely affected the policyholder. For example, in the third-party context, a policyholder may file a bad faith claim against its insurer if the insurer failed to settle a lawsuit against the policyholder within policy limits and a judgment is entered against the policyholder in excess of policy limits. Institutional bad faith, in contrast, goes beyond a single policyholder. In claims of institutional bad faith, the plaintiff or plaintiffs will attempt to demonstrate a company…
Posted in Bad Faith
