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Showing posts with label reference proceeding. Show all posts
Showing posts with label reference proceeding. Show all posts
Thursday, June 11, 2015
US District Court stays bad faith claim until after reference proceeding
As I wrote about here, as required by statute Massachusetts homeowners policies require that a dispute about the value of first-party property damages go to an arbitration called a reference procedure.
In Santos v. Preferred Mut. Ins. Co., __ F. Supp. 2d __, 2013 WL 1633107 (D. Mass.), the plaintiff insured filed suit over damages as well as bad faith practices prior to a reference procedure.
The insurer argued that summary judgment should enter for it on all counts due to the failure to begin with a reference procedure even though the reference procedure would not determine the bad faith counts. The court took a much more reasonable approach, holding that the case should be stayed until after a reference proceeding.
