Cotton States Mutual Insurance v. Brightman

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• noting that insured assigned her claim against her insurer for its bad faith refusal to settle the personal injury action to plaintiff
• rejecting “an affirmative duty on the [insurance] company to engage in negotiations concerning a settlement demand that is in excess of the insurance policy’s limits”
• specifying that Holt held that an insurer has “a duty to its insured to respond to the plaintiff’s deadline to settle the personal injury claim within the policy limits when the insurer [has] knowledge of clear liability and special damages exceeding the policy limits” (emphasis supplied)
• “[T]he general rule [is] that the issue of an insurer’s bad faith depends on whether the insurance company acted reasonably in responding to a settlement offer.”
• measure of damages for a broker’s breach of a contract to procure insurance is not necessarily limited by the policy limits, but may extend to consequential damages
• “Ultimately, this case is governed by the rule that questions of negligence and proximate cause are, except in plain, palpable, and indisputable cases, for the jury.”

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).