In Ventrice v. Lexington Ins. Co., No. 16-660, 2022 WL 3013078 (D.N.J. July 28, 2022) (stated NOT FOR PUBLICATION), the District Judge summarized New Jersey law on insurer bad faith:
To establish a claim for bad faith, a plaintiff must demonstrate that “(1) the insurer lacked a fairly debatable reason for denying coverage, and (2) insurer knew of or recklessly disregarded the lack of a reasonable basis for denying coverage.” Stiso v. State Farm Fire & Cas. Co., No. 13-5741, 2015 WL 7296081, at *9 (D.N.J. Nov. 18, 2015). “A claim is fairly debatable if a plaintiff cannot establish as a matter of law a right to summary judgment on the substantive claim, i.e., the underlying contract claim.” Laing, 2014 WL 4953250, at *3 [Laing v. Am. Strategic Ins. Corp., No. 14-1103, 2014 WL 4953250, at *2 (D.N.J. Oct. 1, 2014)] (internal citation and quotation marks omitted).
Ventrice, 2022 WL 3013078 (page numbers not available from Westlaw at the time of publication).
In this case, differences in the facts made entering summary judgment for either side impossible in the eyes of the District Judge. Accordingly, the Court denied both parties' motions for summary judgment on the bad faith counts.
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