... Insurance Coverage for Construction Defects, Because the Only Claims in that Case are for Coverage, Not for Alleged Bad Faith.
The case of Download Bartram, LLC v. Landmark American Insurance Co. (N.D. Fla. Case No. 1.10.28, Order of USMJ Filed February 4, 2011) PUBLIC ACCESS also published as 2011 WL 528206 (N.D. Fla. February 4, 2011)(authorized password required to access Westlaw) involves high stakes. "This case is a first-party insurance coverage dispute in which Plaintiff seeks a declaration that the damage to its apartment project was covered by each of the builder's risk policies issued by Defendants." Id. at *3. The Plaintiff also claimed Damages for alleged Breach of Contract. Id. The Plaintiff has not alleged any First-Party Bad Faith Claims under Florida substantive law. That is crucial to the outcome of one piece of the parties' discovery disputes addressed by a U.S. Magistrate-Judge in this decision.
The Plaintiffs requested production of each of the Defendants' "standard protocol and time frame" in which they investigate and evaluate builder's risk claims, and following which they ultimately make a decision whether to accept coverage, reserve rights, or deny all coverage, in basic and simple terms. The Court held that this particular request for production is "irrelevant in this action because the claims and defenses in this case depend upon the language of the individual policies issued by Defendants and whether these policies cover Plaintiff's losses. Whether Defendants' failure to pay the claims constitutes bad faith is simply not an issue at this stage." Id. at *4.
This significant ruling was an achievement for the defense in a decision which otherwise recorded holdings and stipulations that allow discovery on every other contested request for production and interrogatory in the case, which involves four collective layers of builder's risk insurance totaling $25,000,000.00. See id. at *1 - *3.
Discovery issues addressed in reported decisions in First-Party Bad Faith Cases, and in First-Party Coverage Cases, are analyzed in Dennis J. Wall, "Litigation and Prevention of Insurer Bad Faith" Chapter 12 (Shepard's/McGraw-Hill Second Edition; West Publishing Company 2010 Supplement; Third Edition in progress for publication in Spring, 2011).
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