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''First Party'' Insurance Bad Faith Claims: Mooring Procedure To Substance |
August 15, 2004
Previously published by the ABA on Spring 2003
Since the seminal California appellate decision in Fletcher v. Western National
Life Insurance Co. was decided in 1970, the judicially created form
of redress for first party insurance bad faith -- centrally, a contract- or tortbased
damages remedy for an insurance company's unreasonable refusal to
provide policy benefits due its insured -- has grown from being the subject
of a few published appellate opinions a year to what some perceive as its
own cottage industry, with armies of specialist lawyers for both insurance
companies and policyholders as well as annual seminars, professional legal
journals, treatises, and websites all devoted to the topic of insurance company
bad faith. Whatever the cause of the increase in the number of claims
of first party insurance bad faith, the courts have noticed their burgeoning dockets, and one judicial response has been to develop tools to weed out
bad faith claims on summary judgment.
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The views expressed in this document are solely the views of the author and not Martindale-Hubbell. This document is intended for informational purposes only and is not legal advice or a substitute for consultation with a licensed legal professional in a particular case or circumstance. |
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