Therese Hood v. USAA

Syllabus

Therese Hood brought this action against her underinsured motorist carrier, United Services Automobile Association, asserting claims for both negligence and bad faith, among others. Following the jury's verdict in favor of USAA on the bad faith claim and in favor of Hood on her negligence claim, the trial court granted USAA's motion for JNOV on the negligence claim, Hood appealed to the court of appeals, which affirmed. We granted certiorari on two issues: (1) whether a first-party insured can bring both a negligence and bad faith claim against their UIM insurer; and (2) whether the court of appeals erred in holding USAA did not act in bad faith during settlement negotiations of Hood's UIM claim or in taking a disparate position on a key factual issue in two underlying tort actions. We affirm.