Carolinas Insurance Litigation - Legal Review April 14, 2011Bad Faith in Absence of Breach of Insurance Contract?
by Jim Bryan and Taylor Stukes
Plaintiffs in insurance coverage actions often bring claims for bad faith in order to attempt to ratchet up the potential damages that can be recovered. In appropriate circumstances, defendants can challenge the claim with a motion to dismiss based on the inadequacy of the pleading (especially in federal court). However, defendants are well advised to determine if another arrow is in their quiver. In many jurisdictions, bad faith claims cannot survive where there is no underlying breach of contract. Not all jurisdictions follow this approach, however. Knowing the law of the jurisdiction applicable to your case may lead you to make a well-timed motion which will eliminate the bad faith claim and change the underlying math of the plaintiff’s damages case. This article explores the law of various jurisdictions concerning the bringing of bad faith claims in the absence of a breach of contract and aims to help the lawyer faced with defending such a claim.
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This article appears in the May issue of For The Defense magazine of the Defense Research Institute.
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Certificates of Insurance and Additional Insureds
by Stephen P. Groves, Sr. and Amy H. Geddes
A frequent dispute in insurance coverage litigation is whether a certificate of insurance confers upon a party the status of an “additional insured” such that the party has insurance coverage for either “bodily injury” and/or “property damage” tort liability arising out of an “accident”. Think of the general contractor (the “GC”) who seeks liability insurance coverage under a subcontractor’s, more often than not, comprehensive general liability insurance policy (the “CGL Policy”) for an action filed by the subcontractor’s employee and the GC points to the COI as the purported “proof” of being an additional insured under the subcontractor’s CGL Policy. The majority of jurisdictions would not afford coverage to the GC as an additional insured. But, it is the minority view that has saved the GC on occasion.
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