Monthly Archive for August, 2018

This case addresses a wide array of New Jersey bad faith issues. The underlying facts involve disputed coverage and defense obligations in a suit against the insured based on the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA).

The insurer withdrew its defense based on trial court finding no coverage, which was later reversed on appeal

The insurer had been defending under a reservation of rights, but withdrew the defense when the trial court ruled no coverage was due. The underlying case proceeded. A $19 million judgment was entered on an unopposed summary judgment motion against the insured.

Subsequently, the appellate division reversed the trial court’s coverage ruling, and remanded to explore further factual issues before determining the coverage question.

The insured assigned it claims to the underlying plaintiffs, who counterclaimed for bad faith and failure to settle within policy limits, and who also intervened in the coverage dispute again alleging bad faith. Before reaching a jury in the declaratory judgment action, the court dismissed the bad faith claims “except for the count in its counterclaim that alleged [the insurer] acted in bad faith by failing to settle the underlying action at a time when it controlled that litigation and could have settled the claim within … policy limits.”

The jury found for the insured on coverage, and the court further awarded attorney’s fees under R. 4:42-9(a)(6). The total award exceeded $5 million.

On appeal, the court went through the relevant policy language and exclusions in great detail. Among other issues addressed, it found the verdict should have been reversed on the issue of what constituted “property damage,” with a single exception, that was also the sole actionable occurrence. Thus, the judgment was significantly undermined on appeal.

Bad faith issues

The court then addressed a variety of bad faith issues. This was triggered by the insurer’s late effort on the eve of trial to renew an attempt to dismiss the bad faith failure to settle claims for failure to bring forth expert testimony to support the failure to settle claim.

The insured “objected to the untimeliness of the motion and requested an adjournment if the court was inclined to dismiss for lack of an expert.” The judge found that there was no actionable bad faith claim under the “fairly debatable standard”, and that the insured had failed to negotiate a reasonable settlement once the defense was withdrawn.

“Alternatively, the judge found that any assessment of [the insurer’s] conduct in this complex case was beyond the ken of the average juror and dismissed the bad faith failure to settle claim because [the insured] had no expert. Noting the case management order required [the insured] to furnish an expert report nearly one year earlier, she denied any adjournment and dismissed the bad faith failure to settle counterclaim.”

The Appellate Division agreed an expert was necessary, but reversed the trial court’s ruling. It found that the motion in limine was functionally a summary judgment motion that was untimely and prejudicial.

The Court then addressed the nature of New Jersey bad faith claims, and the standards applicable in first and third party contexts.

Standards for failure to settle within policy limits

The failure to settle a third party claim within policy limits is governed by the New Jersey Supreme Court’s Rova Farms decision. Because the insurer controls the settlement, it has a fiduciary obligation to exercise good faith in considering settlement. The decision not to settle within policy limits “must be a thoroughly honest, intelligent and objective” decision.

“It must be a realistic one when tested by the necessarily assumed expertise of the company. This expertise must be applied, in a given case, to a consideration of all the factors bearing upon the advisability of a settlement for the protection of the insured. While the view of the carrier or its attorney as to liability is one important factor, a good faith evaluation requires more. It includes consideration of the anticipated range of a verdict, should it be adverse; the strengths and weaknesses of all of the evidence to be presented on either side so far as known; the history of the particular geographic area in cases of similar nature; and the relative appearance, persuasiveness, and likely appeal of the claimant, the insured, and the witnesses at trial.”

Expert needed on bad faith claim to assist jury

Rejecting a settlement by itself does not constitute bad faith. There must be “an assessment of the reasonableness of an insurer’s settlement negotiations in the underlying action” and this assessment “will likely hinge upon the credibility of fact witnesses, as well as expert testimony as to what went wrong on the settlement front and why.”

In this case, the factors were varied and complicated, and expert testimony was necessary to assist the jury in making a bad faith decision under Rova Farms and its progeny. Thus, the trial court was right on the issue that an expert was needed.

Some advice of how to handle late raised issues that will be allowed to go to trial, and the ability to sever bad faith claims

In reversing the dismissal, the appellate judges gave some practical advice to trial courts under these circumstances. Either the trial court have been adjourned to allow time to obtain the expert testimony and response, or the bad faith claim could have been severed and tried after the coverage case. The case was remanded for the trial judge to address the bad faith claim.

Some advice of using “fairly debatable” standard (Pickett) in failure to settle cases (Rova Farms)

The appellate judges then stated they would not address the issue of whether the trial judge’s fairly debatable ruling as a basis for dismissal was proper. The court then went on to discuss the interplay of Rova Farms and the Pickett fairly debatable standard at some length. It observed that the fairly debatable standard arose in the first party context, and that Rova Farms addressed failure to settle third party claims.

The Appellate Division had previously ruled that the fiduciary duty implicated in the third party failure to settle context does not exist in the first party context. However, another Appellate Division panel had ruled that the fairly debatable standard did apply in third party coverage cases (as differentiated from failure to settle cases). Thus, “[n]o reported New Jersey decision has addressed whether Pickett‘s ‘reasonably debatable’ standard applies to an insured’s bad faith refusal to settle claim.”

The Third Circuit has addressed the issue, and found that the Rova Farms’ standards, rather than the Pickett fairly debatable standards should control third party failure to settle claims.

“Whether [the insured] would be held liable for [the third-party’s] injuries was “fairly debatable,” but in the context of a third-party claim with a possibility of an excess verdict, Pickett supplies only part of the equation. The “fairly debatable” standard is analogous to the probability liability will attach in a third-party claim, but it does not consider the likelihood of an excess verdict.

A third-party claim that may exceed the policy limit creates a conflict of interest in that the limit can embolden the insurer to contest liability while the insured is indifferent to any settlement within the limit. This conflict is not implicated when the insured is a first-party beneficiary, where the claimant and the insurer are in an adversarial posture and the possibility of an excess verdict is absent.

Rova Farms, not Pickett, protects insureds who are relegated to the sidelines in third-party litigation from the danger that insurers will not internalize the full expected value of a claim due to a policy cap.”

The present panel chose to decide the issue, though (no pun intended), it acknowledged “the appeal of the Third Circuit’s rationale. An insurer who, while exclusively controlling the litigation, acts in bad faith and refuses to settle a third-party claim within its insured’s policy limits exposes the insured to personal liability. The situation therefore presents different concerns from those posed by a suit where the insurer acts in bad faith and wrongfully denies contractual benefits to the insured under its policy of insurance.”

Failure to negotiate a settlement after coverage denial may not preclude a later bad faith claim

Finally, the panel rejected the trial court’s finding that the insured’s failure to negotiate a settlement once coverage was denied precluded the possibility of a later bad faith claim.

The court looked generally to case law concerning insured’s conduct in settling, or not settling, cases where the insurer has declined involvement on the basis it does not believe coverage is due. Insured are not required as a matter of law to settle at their own expense. Rather, “under certain circumstances, insureds could do so without violating policy terms where there has been a breach by the insurer.”

In sum, the panel reversed the bad faith claim dismissal and remanded the matter to proceed on the bad faith claim.

Date of Decision: July 31, 2018

Penn National Insurance Co. v. Group C Communications, Inc., New Jersey Superior Court Appellate Division, DOCKET NOS. A-0754-15T1 A-0808-15T1, 2018 N.J. Super. Unpub. LEXIS 1833 (N.J. App. Div. July 31, 2018) (O’Connor, Messano and Vernoia, JJ.)