Bad Faith Blog

Summary: Aaron Cohen (Cohen) was injured while working for UPI while operating a mixing machine. Cohen filed suit against UPI, Hastings Development (“Hastings”), and other defendants. Hastings filed a declaratory judgment and bad faith case in federal court after Evanston Insurance Company (“Evanston”) denied coverage under the Employers Liability Exclusion and reserved its rights under the “Designated Operations Coverage.” The Court found coverage under the policy, but ruled Hastings had no bad faith claim.

Summary: Progressive Casualty Insurance Company (“Progressive”) issued a Directors and Officers (D&O) Liability Policy to the National Bank of California (“Bank”) on October 30, 2010. The Declarations Page stated that the defense costs were included within the limit on liability. The policy further gave the insured a defense option, but the Bank did not choose the defense option for D&O Liability. The Bank presented six separate claims to Progressive to which Progressive asserted multiple affirmative defenses. The Bank and Progressive then filed multiple partial motions for summary judgments relating to key issues regarding the claims handling. Only two of those complex issues are addressed here.

An excess liability insurance carrier filed a state court declaratory judgment action seeking a declaration that a primary liability insurer was obligated to pay the entire judgment against the insured, as well as prejudgment interest and costs. After removal to federal court, the primary insurer counterclaimed seeking a declaratory judgment that the excess carrier was liable for equitable indemnity and equitable subrogation. The district court ruled that the primary insurer had a claim for equitable subrogation (not equitable indemnity), but that jury questions remained regarding whether the excess insurer had unreasonably refused to settle the underlying personal injury action within its policy limits.