The filed rate doctrine is an affirmative defense raised by defendants who charge rates, in essence. The defense requires a rate filing with an administrative agency that is authorized by law to review the rate, and approve it or reject it.
States regulate insurance.
In insurance cases, it seems that it should be State law that decides whether a filed rate doctrine exists or, if it is determined to exist, whether it applies in the given case.
Federal Judges decide that there is an insurance Rate Doctrine with federal cases. The latest example is a 2-to-1 panel decision written by a judge visiting from the Sixth Circuit. Patel v. Specialized Loan Servicing LLC / Fowler v. Caliber Home Loans, Inc., 2018 U.S. App. LEXIS 27221, 2018 WL 4559091 (11th Cir. September 24, 2018). The defendants and their supporting amicus did not cite any Florida filed rate doctrine cases in their briefs. (I have their briefs.) There aren't any Florida filed rate doctrine cases anyway.
They did not even try to argue that Florida would invent a Filed insurance Rate Doctrine, or that Florida law would apply it in their case.
The Florida cases cited by the Sixth Circuit judge in Patel/Fowler do not address any Filed Rate Doctrine let alone in insurance.
To say again, there are none. No Florida cases have addressed whether there is a Filed insurance Rate Doctrine in Florida.
For that matter, no Florida cases have addressed whether there is any Filed Rate Doctrine of any kind in Florida.
So, is it "bad faith" in the broadest sense for Federal judges to adjudicate a Filed insurance Rate Doctrine with Federal cases? Or to fail to require counsel to support a Filed insurance Rate defense in a given jurisdiction with case law decided by that jurisdiction on that issue and, if none is available, to explain why that support is not available?
Please Read The Disclaimer. ©2018 Dennis J. Wall. All Rights Reserved. And see the PowerPoint presentation posted by the Florida Bar to their website as a pdf, here, as well as watch and listen to the soundtrack of a YouTube video on this subject, here.
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