NO BREACH OR BAD FAITH WHEN INSURER REFUSES TO PAY REPLACEMENT VALUE ON BASIS THAT INSURED HAS TO PAY TO HAVE THAT WORK DONE IN THE FIRST INSTANCE (New Jersey Appellate Division)
The insured suffered property damage. Under the policy, the insurer would initially pay actual cash value for the loss, and would subsequently pay replacement value if the insured first had the replacement work carried out at the insured’s own expense. The insured raised various arguments, including a central argument that she could not afford to pay for the repairs in advance of receiving payments for those repairs from the insurer, i.e., she was in a Catch-22. (She alleged the repair costs were over $170,000 greater than the ACV payment.)
The insured sued for breach of contract, breach of the duty of good faith and fair dealing, and under the Consumer Fraud Act. The insurer obtained summary judgment at the trial level, and the Appellate Division affirmed on the basis of the trial court’s reasoning.
Although the policy created this Catch-22, the trial court judge “recognized ‘a party to a contract may not avail itself of a condition precedent where its own conduct rendered compliance with the condition impossible.’” The trial judge did note his own “concern that defendant ‘appears to have no mechanism to provide payment of RCV value until the repairs or replacements are completed[,]’ thereby requiring the insured to ‘front’ the money and seek reimbursement later.’ But the [trial] judge nonetheless found ‘the plain language of the contract provides for a process whether RCV can only occur after the acceptance of a settlement amount or rejection thereof.’”
The trial judge rejected an impossibility of performance argument, and observed that the insured accepted the actual cash value payment and did not put on any expert evidence that the actual cash value sum the insurer paid was incorrect.
