INSURER HAD STANDING AS ASSIGNEE TO BRING BAD FAITH CLAIM AGAINST ADDITIONAL INSURANCE PROVIDER; BAD FAITH CLAIM ADEQUATELY STATED FOR FAILURE TO PROVIDE FIRST LEVEL OF COVERAGE AND A DEFENSE UNDER ADDITIONAL INSURED ENDORSEMENT (Philadelphia Federal)
This case involves a dispute between a defendant’s own insurer and another carrier obligated to provide coverage to defendant as an additional insured. The issues involved which insurer has the primary coverage/defense obligations, and which was excess.
There were several tenders to the additional insurance provider to assume the defense, which were either ignored or denied. The defendant’s insurer brought a declaratory judgment action seeking to have the additional insurance provider assume the defense, and to reimburse the defendant’s insurer for attorney’s fees and costs, as well as for the attorney’s fees and costs associated with bringing the declaratory judgment action.
It is also clear from the court’s opinion that a statutory bad faith claim under 42 Pa.C.S. § 8371 was at issue.
There was a motion to dismiss all claims.
There was a duty to defend the additional insured
Among other things, Eastern District Judge Robreno found the underlying complaint adequately alleged facts invoking the additional insurance provider’s duty of defend, when compared to the additional insured endorsement language. Thus, the additional insurance provider was in error in failing to accept the tenders and assume the defense.
There was standing to bring a statutory bad faith claim as an assignee
The additional insurance provider challenged plaintiff’s standing to bring a section 8371 bad faith claim because it was not the named insured. Judge Robreno disagreed, citing the Third Circuit’s 2015 Wolfe decision making clear that assignees can bring statutory bad faith claims.
[Note: Earlier in Wolfe, the Third Circuit certified to Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court the fundamental issue of whether bad faith claims can ever be assigned. In the Supreme Court’s own Wolfe decision, assignments were recognized as permissible, but only within limited parameters. A summary of that case can be found here. The assignment in the present case falls within those acceptable parameters.]
The assignee-insurer pleaded a plausible bad faith claim
Next, Judge Robreno rejected the insurer’s arguments that the complaint was devoid of facts setting out a plausible bad faith claim.
To the contrary, Judge Robreno found the following sufficient:
The complaint alleged the additional insurance provider failed to acknowledge its primary duty to defend, without a reasonable basis, breaching the duty of good faith and fair dealing.
The complaint specifically set out numerous instances where that insurer denied or ignored tender letters.
“Accepting as true all of the allegations in the Complaint and all reasonable inferences that can be drawn therefrom, and based on this record, [the plaintiff] has sufficiently pled that based on the correspondence submitted to [the insurer], [the additional insurance provider] did not adequately investigate, respond, or explain their refusal to defend and potentially indemnify [the insured] in the underlying action.”
