holding that the duty of good faith “prevents an insurer from offering less than what its own investigation reveals to be the claim’s value” and that the insured’s bad faith claim was appropriately resolved by jury where the insurer “promised to make [certain] coverage available, made a small advance towards that end, and then refused to make further payment on the claim outside a settlement far below the dollar value placed on the claim based on its own investigation.”
How later courts described this case
- holding that the duty of good faith “prevents an insurer from offering less than what its own investigation reveals to be the claim’s value” and that the insured’s bad faith claim was appropriately resolved by jury where the insurer “promised to make [certain] coverage available, made a small advance towards that end, and then refused to make further payment on the claim outside a settlement far below the dollar value placed on the claim based on its own investigation.”
- holding that after a reasonable investigation, an insurer must promptly settle a claim “for the value or within the range assigned to the claim as a result of its investigation.”
- noting “there [was] no indication” in claim file that insurer questioned causation of claimant’s injuries prior to pretrial conference in litigation related to claim
- “An insurer may not treat its own insured in the manner in which an insurer may treat third-party claimants to whom no duty of good faith and fair dealing is owed.”
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
OPALA, J.,
dissenting.
T1 I eannot join today's pronouncement. I must recede from the unforeshadowed, sua sponte abandonment of Brashier v. Farmers Insurance Co., 1996 OK 86 , 925 P.2d 20 , whose death warrant is given retrospective effect in violation of Art 5, §§ 52 and 54, OkL. Const. For a detailed explanation of my views, see Barnes v. Oklahoma Farm Bureau Mut. Ins. Co., 2000 OK 55 , 11 P.3d 162 (Opala, J., dissenting).