Search Results for 'lopez'
In Lopez v. Selective Insurance Company of South Carolina, Eastern District Judge Schiller dismissed plaintiff’s bad faith claim, without prejudice, for only pleading conclusory allegations. Our summary of this June 2020 decision can be found here.
Plaintiff took the opportunity to file an amended complaint, and the carrier again moved to dismiss the bad faith claim. This time around, however, plaintiff defeated the motion to dismiss by alleging specific facts.
Judge Schiller relied on earlier case law for the principle that bad faith claims can stand if the “plaintiff’s factual allegations regarding the insurer’s intent, along with the chronology of events, support[] the inference that the defendant had no reasonable basis for denying the claim and knew or recklessly disregarded that lack of reasonable basis in denying the claim.”
In Lopez, plaintiff alleged the insured suffered a covered property loss and provided timely notice. The loss arose from a heating failure on the property.
Addressing the coverage issue, the complaint avers that under the controlling policy language, the insured only had to take reasonable steps to maintain heat on the property. The insured did so, but the heating system failed despite those reasonable steps.
The complaint further alleges the carrier initially took the position that it would cover a portion of the loss. Moreover, the carrier’s representative confirmed that the insured had taken reasonable steps to maintain heat at the property. Once the carrier realized the size of the loss, however, the complaint alleges the insurer retreated from its original position that a portion of the loss was covered.
Judge Schiller found the specific facts pleaded “would suggest” the carrier both “lacked a reasonable basis for denying the claim; and … knew or recklessly disregarded its lack of a reasonable basis for denying the claim.”The complaint “contains specific factual allegations regarding … intent, and it identifies what actions [the insurer] took that were unreasonable.”
More specifically, “[t]he allegation that Defendant acted in bad faith ‘by unreasonably claiming that heat was not maintained when the policy does not require that heat be maintained, but simply that reasonable steps to maintain heat be taken, all with the intent to deceive Plaintiff about what the policy requires and deny coverage’ is not conclusory.” Likewise, the allegation that the insurer accepted coverage and agreed to pay a portion of the loss, only changing its position when discovering the loss’s magnitude, is not conclusory. It was also significant that the insurer’s representative allegedly conceded that the insured took reasonable steps to maintain the heat.
Thus, “[t]hese specific allegations allow the Court to infer what [the insurer] did, why it was unreasonable, and how [the insurer] knew or should have known it was unreasonable.” [Judge Schiller’s emphases] In sum, “[b]y accepting these allegations as true, the Court can reasonably infer that [the insurer] knew Plaintiff’s claim was covered under the policy, indicated the claim would be covered, and then, once all of the damage was assessed, denied the claim because it was too expensive. Thus, Plaintiff’s Amended Complaint is well pleaded and survives a motion to dismiss.”
Date of Decision: August 31, 2020
Lopez v. Selective Insurance Co. of South Carolina, U.S. District Court Eastern District of Pennsylvania No. CV 20-1260, 2020 WL 5121281 (E.D. Pa. Aug. 31, 2020) (Schiller, J.)
In these two Philadelphia federal opinions issued last week, bad faith claims were dismissed without prejudice. In one case, this was based on a set of pleadings that has been repeatedly held conclusory in nature. In the other, after stripping away the conclusory allegations, the court found that the remaining factual allegations simply did not make out a bad faith case.
There have been at least 10 prior opinions out of Pennsylvania’s Eastern District this year similarly dismissing bad faith claims for inadequate pleading.
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Lopez v. Selective Insurance Co. of South Carolina (Judge Schiller, Eastern District)
In Lopez v. Selective Insurance, Judge Schiller found the complaint set out only conclusory allegations, and that these allegations “did not logically follow from any facts alleged in the Complaint.” These included the following 13 separate allegations, all of which failed:
“[S]ending correspondence falsely representing that Plaintiff’s loss caused by a peril insured against under the Policy was not entitled to benefits due and owing under the policy . . . failing to complete a prompt and thorough investigation of Plaintiff’s claim before representing that such claim is not covered under the Policy . . . failing to pay Plaintiff’s covered loss in a prompt and timely manner . . . failing to objectively and fairly evaluate Plaintiff’s claim . . . conducting an unfair and unreasonable investigation of Plaintiff’s claim . . . asserting Policy defenses without a reasonable basis in fact . . . flatly misrepresenting pertinent facts or policy provisions relating to coverages at issue and placing unduly restrictive interpretations on the Policy and/or claim forms . . . failing to keep Plaintiff or their representatives fairly and adequately advised as to the status of the claim . . . unreasonably valuing the loss and failing to fairly negotiate the amount of the loss with Plaintiff or their representatives . . . failing to promptly provide a reasonable factual explanation of the basis for the denial of Plaintiff’s claim . . . unreasonably withholding policy benefits . . . acting unreasonably and unfairly in response to Plaintiff’s claim . . . unnecessarily and unreasonably compelling Plaintiff to institute this lawsuit to obtain policy benefits for a covered loss, that Defendant should have paid promptly and without the necessity of litigation.”
In describing what the complaint lacked, Judge Schiller observed, “[t]he Complaint does not contain any factual allegations that relate to why or how Defendant’s basis for denying the claim was unreasonable. Indeed, the Complaint does not include any facts related to Defendant’s purported basis for denying the claim or Defendant’s actions or omissions in conducting an investigation. Plaintiff’s Complaint does not describe the cause or extent of the alleged loss, the provisions of the insurance policy at issue, the date on which Plaintiff made Defendant aware of the loss, or the date on which Defendant initially denied the claim. Plaintiff’s conclusory allegations are not supported by specific facts sufficient to state a plausible claim for relief. Courts consistently hold that bare-bones allegations of bad faith such as these, without more, are insufficient to survive a motion to dismiss.”
Plaintiffs relied on the 1009 Clinton Properties opinion, but consistent with a number of other recent decisions, Judge Schiller found Clinton Properties to be an “outlier” and rejected the insureds’ argument. Clinton Properties has similarly been deemed an outlier by Judge Marston in her Cappuccio decision, Judge Darnell Jones in Clapps, and Judge Leeson in Shetayh. These cases rejected very similar allegations in each instance.
Date of Decision: June 17, 2020
Lopez v. Selective Insurance Co., U.S. District Court Eastern District of Pennsylvania CIVIL ACTION No. 20-1260, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 105733 (E.D. Pa. June 17, 2020) (Schiller, J.)
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Graves v. USAA General Indemnity Co. (Judge Gallagher, Eastern District)
The insureds brought UIM breach of contract and bad faith claims. The court dismissed for failing to plead anything other than conclusory allegations or facts that could not constitute bad faith.
After stripping away the conclusory allegations, the court found the following factual allegations, even assuming their truth, failed “to support a claim that Defendant adjusted the UIM claim in bad faith.”
“1) Plaintiff was operating a motor vehicle which was insured under a USAA insurance contract and which provided for UIM benefits; 2) the accident was caused by the third party; 3) Plaintiff suffered severe injuries as a result of the accident; 4) Plaintiff submitted a claim for UIM benefits; 5) Plaintiff complied with the policy’s requirement to obtain Defendant’s consent to settle her claim against the third party; 6) Plaintiff forwarded her medical documentation to Defendant; and 7) Defendant has not paid the UIM claim.”
Graves v. USAA General Indemnity Co., U.S. District Court Eastern District of Pennsylvania Civil No. 2:20-cv-00786-JMG, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 105123 (June 16, 2020) (Gallagher, J.)
