Sometimes it is fun to see what other states do. Here in Massachusetts, insurer bad faith claims are for all intents and purposes a product of statute, and the statute authorizes multiple damages and awards of attorney’s fees to a prevailing plaintiff. Hence, there is a significant amount of bad faith litigation in this jurisdiction.
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About Stephen Rosenberg
Stephen Rosenberg attended American University and graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Political Science in 1986. He subsequently received his law degree from the Boston University School of Law in 1990. While in law school, Mr. Rosenberg received the American Jurisprudence Award in Criminal Law, and was recognized as a G. Joseph Tauro Distinguished
About This Blog
The Boston ERISA and Insurance Litigation Blog is intended to provide you, the reader, with timely and useful information concerning current legal developments in two of my litigation specialties – and favorite topics – ERISA and insurance coverage. This blog will generally look first at and cite to the law of the First Circuit and
401(k)s and ERISA
A terrific paper on the application of ERISA and its fiduciary duty standards to 401(k) plans and to the people who run them is available free right now from the ABA. As employee benefit plans, these retirement plans are within ERISA’s ambit and the companies and individuals who operate them are subject to the fiduciary
How Do You Calculate a Fee Award to a Solo Practitioner?
There is a neat little ERISA decision just out from the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. In the case of James McDonald et al. v. Pension Plan of the NYSA-ILA Pension Trust Fund, et al., http://www.ca2.uscourts.gov/ decided on Tuesday, the court addressed the question of determining an appropriate fee award under ERISA for a
What if Both the Insurer and the Insured Cause a Misrepresentation in an Insurance Application?
This is fun – what happens if insurance coverage is based on misrepresentations in an application, but the misrepresentations were due to both mistakes by the insurer and oversights by the insured? The general rule, with variations among jurisdictions as to certain specifics, is that coverage is void if obtained based on misrepresentations in an
Professional Liability Coverage for Medical Billing Errors
There is an interesting story out of Massachusetts concerning a $1.9 million settlement entered into by a physician related to allegedly fraudulent medical billing; the article is at http://www.masslawyersweekly.com/ (subscription required for the full article). In fairness and to be accurate, note that the physician denies the charges and has stated that the real problem
A Reasonable But Erroneous Coverage Determination is Not Bad Faith
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court reinvigorated, yet at the same time may have narrowed, a key rule governing insurer bad faith claims in this state in its decision this month in City Fuel Corp. vs. National Fire Insurance Company of Hartford, SJC-09623 (May 10, 2006), available here http://www.masslawyersweekly.com/signup/opinion.cfm?page=ma/opin/sup/1007806.htm.
In the Commonwealth, bad faith
Pollution Exclusions and the Reasonable Expectations Doctrine
There is an interesting decision out of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court concerning the application of a policy endorsement and its mirror image exclusion to coverage of an oil leak from an oil delivery truck. The spill occurred while the truck was parked overnight, in between two separate days of delivering oil. The Supreme Judicial