An Insurance Company's Summary Judgment Motion on a Chapter 93A Consumer Protection Act Claim was granted in Fundquest Inc. v. Travelers Casualty & Surety Co., Download Fundquest Inc. v. Travelers Casualty and Surety Co. (D. Mass. Caes No. 09.11471, Opinion Filed June 4, 2010) also published as 2010 WL 2223301 (D. Mass. 2010)(Westlaw subscription required to access Westlaw). The standard of liability under Chapter 93A is similar to other Insurance Bad Faith Claims across the nation. In particular, a fairly or reasonably debatable defense to Coverage will ordinarily bar such a claim.
The Court's holding was based on the Insurance Company's "reasonable debate" over the terms of the "Financial Institution Bond" at issue in that case:
Despite Travelers' ultimately erroneous interpretation of the Bond, the court does not believe that its actions rise to the level of bad faith, or that a reasonable insurer could not have deemed the issue one open to reasonable debate, particularly given the court's own struggle to see through the insurance-ese in which the Bond is written.
Fundquest, 2010 WL 2223301 at *6.
For the treatment by other Courts in other cases of "fairly or reasonably debatable" defenses in other First-Party Cases, see Dennis J. Wall, "Litigation and Prevention of Insurer Bad Faith" § 11.17 (Shepard's/McGraw-Hill First Edition; West Publishing Co. Second Edition and 2010 Supplement in process). For the emergence of this defense in Third-Party Bad Faith Cases see id. §§ 5:16 (Settlement), 5:26 (Refusal to Defend), and 5:51 (Adequacy of Defense) .
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