Hurricane Koken continues to swirl through Pennsylvania.
In her recent Order in the case of McLaughlin v. State Auto Property and Cas. Ins. Co., No.
2017-CV-08471 (Aug. 29, 2018 Gartley, J.), Judge Tina Polachek Gartley of the
Luzerne County Court of Common Pleas granted in part and denied in part the UIM carrier’s Motion to Sever and
Stay the Plaintiffs’ statutory and common law bad faith claims in a Post-Koken litigation.
The Court agreed to sever the bad faith claims from the breach of contract claims for trial purposes but denied the motion
for a stay of any bad faith discovery.
The Order additionally noted that any bad faith discovery
disputes should be submitted to the court for a determination as to whether the
information at issue is protected from discovery or warrants a redaction until
the breach of contract/UIM claims have been submitted to the jury for final
disposition.
The court further ordered that the UIM carrier shall deliver
any and all unredacted or withheld copies of bad faith discovery when the case is sent to the
jury for deliberations on the breach of contract/UIM case.
The court additionally noted that, upon receipt and review
of the bad faith discovery, the Plaintiff may request an immediate non-jury
trial on the bad faith claim or seek a continuance to conduct pre-trial
preparation of that bad faith claim.
Commentary:
The court’s Order in this regard follows, without citation, the decision
of Judge Terrence R. Nealon in the Lackawanna County Court of Common Pleas case
of Fertig v. Kelley , which followed, in
part, decisions by Judge R. Stanton Wettick of the Allegheny Court of Common
Pleas in the cases of Gunn v. The
Automobile Ins. Co. of Hartford and Wutz
v. Smith.
Anyone wishing to review this Order by Judge Gartley may click this LINK.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.