There is an interesting new decision by the Massachusetts Appeals Court concerning the liability of insurers under Massachusetts law for wrongful failure to settle a claim. Under the Massachusetts rubric, an insurer has an obligation to make at least reasonable efforts to settle a claim against its insured once the insured’s liability has become reasonably
Bad Faith Failure to Settle
Attorney Fee Awards in Chapter 93A and ERISA Litigation
Twenty years or so ago, I represented an insurer in a $20 million insurance bad faith and Chapter 93A claim in which one of the key issues was whether the insurer was right to rely on the advice of a terrific lawyer, Tom Burns (the Burns in the Boston firm Burns and Levinson), who had…
The Attorney-Client Privilege in Insurance Litigation
My in-box, like most of you I assume, is inundated on a day in, day out basis with offers of webinars, seminars, and the like on every topic under the sun that the sponsors think I might even conceivably have any interest in or professional connection to. Most I ignore without even opening, as not…
Bad Faith Failure to Settle and the Obligations of Excess Carriers
I wanted to return for a moment to a decision from the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court from earlier this month, Allmerica Financial Corporation v. Certain Underwriters at Lloyds’ London, in which the court held that an excess carrier that had issued a follow form policy to an insured was not bound by or required…
Bad Faith Failure to Settle? Maybe, Maybe Not.
Well, this is an interesting report, and though I am not quite sure exactly what to make of it, it falls within the general rubric of this blog. As Robert Ambrogi sums the reporting and blogging on this story up here, a law firm has been hit with an eighteen million dollar malpractice verdict…