The Supreme Court of Wisconsin took a break from its elections work this year and held that in deciding a liability insurance carrier's duty to defend ...
... a court is bound by the four-corners rule when deciding whether the Complaint alleges a covered claim triggering the insurer’s duty to defend. Once a court concludes a duty to defend exists, the insurer’s actions—unilaterally denying coverage, opting for a judicially preferred procedure to determine coverage, or something else—will be examined to decide whether the insurer breached its duty to defend.
Choinsky v. Employers Ins. Co. of Wausau, 390 Wis. 2d 209, ¶ 42, at 238, 938 N.W.2d 548, ¶ 42 at 562 (2020).
A checklist based on the decided case law including the Choinsky decision for Avoiding Bad Faith in Third-Party Claims: Check List On Deciding Whether to Defend, is set out in Section 3:103 in 1 DENNIS J. WALL, LITIGATION AND PREVENTION OF INSURER BAD FAITH (Thomson Reuters West, 3d Edition, forthcoming 2020 Supplement).
Please read the disclaimer. ©2020 Dennis J. Wall. All rights reserved.
Comments