Kentucky Jury Awards $3.8 Million on Third Party Bad Faith Claim

On June 3, a Jefferson County, Kentucky jury awarded a woman $3.8 million in a bad faith suit against her doctor’s insurer, American Physican’s Assurance Corp.  Shortly after Debbie Daniels underwent a hysterectomy and tummy tuck, her insision opened, necesitating emergency surgery and a lengthy and difficult recovery.

The insurer’s claim file indicated that, although it determined that its insured was liable and evaluated the claim at $1 million, it refused to enter into settlement negotiations for two years before offering $75,000, according to the Louisville Courier-Journal.  Daniels eventually settled with her doctor for $650,000, and reserved the right to sue American Physican’s Assurance.

I don’t claim to know much about Kentucky law, and can’t offer any opinion on whether the verdict will stand up on appeal, but it isn’t likely that such a claim would survive in Alabama, where longstanding law provides that “a party may not bring an action against an insurance company for bad-faith failure to pay an insurance claim if the party does not have a direct contractual relationship with the insurance company.”  Williams v State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 886 So.2d 72 (Ala. 2003).