A former trial judge's expert testimony was excluded on the issue of negotiating good faith settlements in Columbia Cas. Co. v. Ironshore Specialty Ins. Co., C.A. No. 15-197 WES, 2019 WL 2176306 (D.R.I. May 20, 2019).
To be fair, the federal court's reasoning in this case would have excluded all expert testimony regarding a civil litigant's reasonable expectations, which is how the federal judge framed the issue. Testimony on that issue was "irrelevant," said the federal judge excluding the expert testimony, "because the average civil litigant is a party representing his own interests, not a fiduciary representing the interests of another." Columbia Casualty, 2019 WL 2176306, at *5 (emphasis in original).
The excluding judge allowed, however, that if the expert judge's testimony had been proffered differently in that case, such as addressing the expert judge's own experience "with insurance contracts and settlement negotiations of insurance claims specifically, or presented 'standards of settlement practice' that were tailored to the unique fiduciary duties imposed upon insurance companies," then the expert's testimony might have been relevant and so admissible in the courtroom of the federal judge. Columbia Casualty, 2019 WL 2176306, at *5.
The issue of the Insured's Right to Contribute as Distinct From Insurer Insistence That the Insured Contribute to Settlement, is discussed based on the decided case law including the Columbia Casualty decision, in Section 3:13 in 1 DENNIS J. WALL, LITIGATION AND PREVENTION OF INSURER BAD FAITH (Thomson Reuters West, 3d Edition, forthcoming 2020 Supplement).
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