Bad Faith and Extra-Contractual Obligations

Dan Santaniello has acted as an expert on the areas of Bad Faith and the Powell Doctrine.  His team assists carriers with navigating Time Limit and Policy Limit Demands (TLD/PLD).  On March 24, 2023 (Tort Reform), the Florida Legislature made significant changes to statutory law affecting bad faith litigation.   Absent case law that will develop over the next several years, there may be pre-tort reform and post-tort reform strategies for handling TLD and PLD’s.  Our Bad Faith Team will help insurers navigate these risks and establish Best Practices.

Under the “new” rule post-tort reform, a claimant and his/her attorney arguably has a duty to act in good faith and give an insurer sufficient evidence to respond to a claim.  Our Bad Faith team will help document Best Practices in requesting “sufficient evidence.”  The definitions of sufficient evidence will play out over the next several years, so our TLD team will help navigate these risks under both the pre- and post-tort reform old and new rules. 

In the event a tender of policy limits decision is made, our Tenders Team will help execute the tender and employ a “tender watch” strategy and protocol that involves timely investigation and interaction with claimant and their counsel. The team will document all attempts to obtain sufficient evidence, investigate and evaluate issues of liability, causation and damages.  We will navigate Florida’s Mirror Image Rule, and the variety of common bad faith setups, such release language, conditions on tenders, statutory compliance with insurance disclosures, requests for financial and other information from insureds (Harvey Doctrine), decisions affecting the release of additional insureds (the Contreras Doctrine, etc.) Our team will identify and avoid these traps so as to avoid a rejection when a decision has been made to tender policy limits.

Multiple claimant, single limit, no excess time and policy limits demands present their own unique challenges.  Post-tort reform cases allow Interpleader and we will help execute that strategy if a Global Settlement Conference or Mediation fails.  The Farinas v. Florida Farm Bureau doctrine required an insurer pre-tort reform to investigate and settle as many claims as it can within policy limits. There was no safe harbor other than to document and execute a strategy that increased the chances of a successful tender, especially when many times the competing plaintiffs’ do not want to compromise claims because they exceed all available insurance coverage for the loss. Our Bad Faith team employs a proprietary strategy to resolve these claims without the need for litigation.  In certain tcases, insurers may utilize Interpleader if the claim cannot be resolved in a Global Mediation or Settlement Conference.  When representing an insurer, we will advise and develop an Interpleader strategy if Global Settlement Conference attempts fail. 

For claims where plaintiff’s Counsel is already seeking extra-contractual recovery, we will assess and advise on the risk.  Our Bad Faith team can draft and negotiate Cunningham and Coblentz Agreements, opinion on Coverage issues and negotiate claims of bad faith.  Dan Santaniello also serves as an expert in this area and is able to be retained and testify as an expert on this topic. 

To learn more, click here to see our people who specialize in this practice area or click here to see a list of our verdicts for this practice area.