Strategies, Challenges, and Answers

Archives for May 2009

Plain Vanilla Nevada Bad Faith

Farmers Home Mutual Ins. v. Fiscus, 102 Nev. 371, 725 P.2d 234, (1986) is a text book example of a straightforward bad faith suit.  It all started out simply enough.The Fiscus family used an evaporative cooler to keep their Boulder City home tolerable during the long, hot Nevada summers.  The cooler’s water supply line hooked into the pipe under the kitchen sink and ran up to the roof.  While the Fiscus family was away on a three-week summer vacation, the cooler’s supply line became … [Read more...]

Halfway Tort Reform

Nevada’s scheme for punitive damages was the target of tort reform proponents in 1995.  The reformers were able to make some headway relative to limiting punitive damages.  However, N.R.S. 42.005 creates huge exceptions to these limits in many areas that have proved so lucrative to the Plaintiffs’ bar.Under the revisions to the punitive damages law, conventional punitive damages awards are limited to three times the amount of the compensatory damages where compensatory damages exceed … [Read more...]

Then There Are Other Times When Breach Of The Insurance Contract And Bad Faith Actions Must Be Brought In The Same Suit

In an earlier post HERE, we discussed a Nevada Supreme Court opinion where the court said that a claim for Breach of the Insurance Contract, and Bad Faith did not need to be brought in the same suit.  However, based upon different facts, other courts have said that the Bad Faith and Breach of Contract suits must be filed in the same action.  In the case of Sosebee v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 164 F.3d 1215 (9th Cir. 1999), the court ruled that a Plaintiff, who brought a Breach of Contract … [Read more...]