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The Ehrlich Law Firm News
Jeffrey Isaac Ehrlich, Appeals Attorney
California Appellate Law Specialist
Ehrlich Law Firm wins insurance bad-faith victory in California Supreme Court
Insurance companies in California can no longer prevail in bad-faith lawsuits brought by their policyholders simply by showing that there was a "dispute" about whether the insurer should pay the claim. In Wilson v. 21st Century Ins. Co. (2007) 42 Cal.4th 713, the Supreme Court reined in the so-called "genuine dispute rule" that had become the insurance industries' most potent defense in bad-faith cases, holding that the rule only applied at the summary-judgment stage, and then only in cases where a jury would be unable to make a finding that the insurer had acted unreasonably. The Wilson ruling makes it much harder for insurers to obtain summary judgment in bad-faith lawsuit.