If you feel you have a case against an insurance company, contact our insurance bad faith attorneys in Los Angeles to get the compensation you paid for.
Insurance Bad Faith Attorneys in Los Angeles
Submit your insurance bad faith case
The insurance bad faith attorneys at Booth & Koskoff in Los Angeles are dedicated to holding profit hungry insurance companies responsible for the promises they make to their clients. All of us purchase house, automobile, health and other insurance for protection in case circumstances such as illness, disability or serious property damage arise. Unfortunately, the insurance coverage may not always protect us. Insurance companies sometimes put profits ahead of fulfilling their obligations to their policyholders. In those situations, policyholders have a right to sue the insurance companies for "bad faith," in order to force them to honor their contractual obligations, and, in certain circumstances, to compensate the policyholder for their emotional distress and/or to pay punitive damages.
If you feel you have been wronged by an insurance company, please contact our insurance bad faith lawyers in Los Angeles at Booth & Koskoff.
Featured Insurance Bad Faith Cases - Los Angeles
Our Los Angeles firm has been handling insurance bad faith cases for more than 20 years and our lawyers have obtained a number of significant results, including a settlement for $4,000,000 and two jury verdicts in excess of $1,000,000. Recently, our Los Angeles lawyers have been involved in the well-publicized insurance bad faith litigation against Unum Provident arising out of their systematic denial of benefits to countless executives, physicians and other high-paid individuals who had purchased expensive disability insurance benefits. We have settled two Unum Provident cases and are investigating others.
- Case Results
- > Cleanmaster vs. Fireman's Fund
- > Bird case
- > Evans vs. Continental Ins.
Cleanmaster vs. Fireman's Fund
RESULT/YEAR:
SETTLEMENT in 1989 for $4,000,000.
KEY FACTS:
The plaintiff was the owner of a large business which supplied cleaning products to various other businesses and had a large facility with thousands of dollars worth of merchandise. This facility was burned to the ground in what was obviously an arson fire, since the culprit left behind the remains of the gasoline cans used to start the fire. The plaintiff's insurance company argued that the plaintiff himself had set the fire because of financial difficulties. In addition, the federal government conducted a two-year investigation, interviewing dozens of witnesses, in an attempt to indict the plaintiff. He was never indicted.
The plaintiff's position was that he was not in financial trouble, but simply appeared to be because he paid his creditors at the latest possible moment so that he could use "other people's money." The decisive factor in the case was establishing that the plaintiff's credit was excellent and that, during the period when he was allegedly in financial trouble, he had given large sums of money to various charitable organizations. In addition, one of the richest businessmen in Los Angeles was a close friend of the plaintiff and was in a position to backup any financial shortfalls.
After years of insurance bad faith litigation, the insurance company reluctantly paid the amount of the insurance claim, but the plaintiff continued to pursue the lawsuit, claiming that the company had acted in bad faith and was liable for emotional distress and punitive damages. On the first day of trial, literally on the courthouse steps, the insurance company suddenly collapsed its position and agreed to pay an additional $4,000,000.
Bird case
RESULT/YEAR:
VERDICT in 1991 for $1,540,000.
KEY FACTS:
The plaintiff in this insurance bad faith in the Los Angeles area had an underinsured motorist provision in his automobile policy which required that his insurance company pay up to $10,000 if he were injured by another driver who was not adequately insured. The plaintiff was an engineer who, although he returned to work rather quickly, suffered a head injury that affected his work, involved loss of memory, etc. Insurance bad faith attorneys LARRY BOOTH and JOHNNA HANSEN, who tried the case, argued that the insurance company acted in bad faith by trying to nickel and dime the plaintiff on a case that was clearly worth much more than the $10,000 policy limits.
Our insurance bad faith lawyers conducted trial in two phases. After the jury had found that the insurance company was guilty of bad faith, the parties entered into a so-called "hi-low" agreement to the effect that the insurance company would immediately pay whatever amount the jury awarded in punitive damages, provided that, no matter what the jury did, the payment would be at least $400,000, but no more than $1,500,000. Attorneys Booth and Hansen entered into this agreement because, at the time, a number of insurance bad faith cases had been lost on appeal because of the generally conservative views of the Courts of Appeal, and they wanted to eliminate that risk. As it turned out, the jury awarded $1,500,000 in punitive damages.
Evans vs. Continental Ins.
RESULT/YEAR:
VERDICT in 1987 for $1,275,000.
KEY FACTS:
This case was tried by insurance bad faith lawyer LARRY BOOTH in Los Angeles, who argued that the defendant insurance company had acted in bad faith by delaying the payment of the $25,000 policy limits in a dog bite case. The plaintiff was a postman who had a severe bite on his right biceps, leaving a cosmetic defect. Booth contended that this injury was clearly worth $25,000, but the insurance company balked and stalled on payment of the claim through the negotiation phase until the $25,000 had to be obtained through arbitration.
The technique utilized by Booth in trial was to obtain large blowups of the significant documents exchanged between the plaintiff's attorney and the insurance company's attorney in order to demonstrate to the jury the conduct of the insurance company in attempting to save a small amount of money while putting the plaintiff through unnecessary emotional distress.
A key ingredient to the insurance bad faith trial was the testimony of an attorney who was formerly employed by the insurance company. He had taken over the handling of the file and immediately attempted to settle for the $25,000 policy limit, recognizing that the prior negotiations were not in good faith. The insurance company attacked this witness on the ground that he had a lawsuit against the insurance company, had been fired under adverse conditions and, therefore, was simply a disgruntled employee.
COMMENTS:
This verdict was featured as the "centerfold" in Verdictum Juris.