The Policyholder’s Perspective from Brandon McWherter
The Insurance Company’s Perspective from Parks T. Chastain

Bad Faith

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On April 29, 2011, the Tennessee legislature adopted House Bill 1189 was enacted into law and signed by Governor Haslam. Public Chapter No. 130 will be codified in Tennessee Code Annotated, Title 56, Chapter 8, Part 1. The signed law is available by clicking here.

The law amends Title 56 related to insurance business acts…

In bad faith and Tennessee Consumer Protection Act cases, I routinely run into work product objections during discovery. Often these objections are made even as to reports and documents generated before the claim was denied. I believe work-product objections as to pre-denial materials are improper. As we know, Rule 26.02(3) protects against disclosure of materials…

Delay, Deny, Defend – Why Insurance Companies Don’t Pay Claims and What You Can Do About It. No, that’s not the theme of a bad faith trial.  Its the title of Professor Jay M. Feinman’s new book that chronicles the bad faith practices of insurance companies.  Several months back, the book’s publisher, Penguin, provided me…

My learned friend Parks Chastain recently posted here that Tennessee law provides for a reverse bad faith penalty of not more than 25% of the amount claimed when a policyholder does not bring an action in good faith.  Parks’ use of the adage "what’s good for the goose is good for the gander" is right…

 As a result of the numerous tornados that have passed through Tennessee over the past decade, I have become acutely aware of the fact that insurance companies use the same engineering firms over and over again in their investigation of whether a claim constitutes a covered loss.  The obvious problem with insurance companies’ repeated use…

Tennessee Code Annotated § 56-7-106 brings the old adage of “what’s good for the goose is good for the gander” to first party insurance litigation in Tennessee. It provides a penalty against the policyholder of an amount not exceeding twenty-five percent (25%) of the amount claimed when:

 

  • The policyholder does not recover under the

…

Magistrate Ed Bryant (W.D. Tenn.) recently issued a Report and Recommendation in one of my cases in which he held that Tennessee law allows an independent adjuster to be held liable under the Tennessee Consumer Protection Act.  The defendant independent adjuster argued that my client failed to state a claim under the TCPA because the…