Earlier this month, a Massachusetts Appellate Court affirmed a trial court’s award of bad faith damages in a case where it found the insurer’s approach to a claim to be “at best inattentive, if not incompetent.” Although the state appellate court in McLaughlin et al. v. American States Insurance Co. ultimately denied an award of multiple damages, its award of attorneys’ fees and costs, along with loss of use of funds damages, shows the limits of arguing no bad faith because the insured’s liability was not “reasonably clear” under Massachusetts’s bad faith statutes. The Court’s decision, even though unpublished, serves as yet another reminder of the importance for insurers to properly investigate claims and objectively analyze whether an insured’s liability is…
