The Decline of the So-Called Doctrine of Continuing Bad Faith
July 07, 2008
Alex Mahler recently co-authored "The Decline of the So-Called Doctrine of Continuing Bad Faith", which appeared in the ABA's Tort, Trial & Insurance Practice Law Journal (Winter 2008). The article asserts the so-called doctrine, which seeks to use insurers' post-coverage litigation conduct as evidence of their bad faith, deviates from long standing principles of bad faith law which inevitably prejudices insurers by holding them to a higher standard of litigation conduct. Mr. Mahler suggests that the seminal case of "continuing bad faith", White v. Western Title, 710 P.2d 309 (Cal. 1985), rested on faulty legal principles and the so-called doctrine was therefore born from subsequent cases propagating these faulty principles. As such, while many courts today already recognize the severe limitations of "continuing bad faith", the article calls for its complete fall.
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