Insurance Claims
Court Confirms Insurer Permitted to Choose Counsel in Discharging Duty to Defend
Aaron Mandel | Sedgwick LLP
February 13, 2015
An insurer’s duty to defend and how that duty gets discharged may be one of the most frequently litigated coverage issues. Although typical policies afford insurers the right to control their insureds’ defense, insureds often prefer to appoint their own counsel and have their insurer reimburse them for their defense costs. That is especially true where the insurer reserves its rights under its policy. The latest opinion addressing this issue came out of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California inTravelers Property Casualty Co. v. Kaufman & Broad Monterey Bay, et al., No. 5:13-cv-04745-EJD (Feb. 11, 2015).
Sometime before February 2012, the developers (“KB”) of a housing project located in Northern California hired Norcraft to perform cabinet work. Norcraft was insured under commercial general liability insurance policies issued by Travelers, which extended additional insured coverage to KB for liability arising out of Norcraft’s work. In February 2012, homeowners sued KB for construction defects including defects in Norcraft’s work (the “underlying lawsuit”). Travelers agreed to defend KB in that lawsuit after receiving a copy of Norcraft’s subcontract with KB – which Travelers did not receive until almost eight months after the underlying plaintiffs filed their lawsuit against KB – and appointed defense counsel to do so. KB objected to the law firm Travelers appointed to defend them because they claimed it was “ethically conflicted from representing [KB] since it had represented parties adverse to [KB] in other cases pertaining to similar issues as the [underlying lawsuit].”
Facing KB’s objection to the appointed counsel, Travelers sought a declaration that KB’s objection was a “material breach of [Travelers’] policies and of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing.” KB counterclaimed arguing that Travelers “did not intend to provide [KB] with an immediate, full, complete, and conflict-free defense” because Travelers knew about the appointed law firm’s alleged conflicts. The parties cross-moved for summary judgment.
First addressing KB’s claim that Travelers did not “immediately” defend them in the underlying lawsuit, the court concluded that Travelers’ duty to defend was not triggered until it received all relevant information to determine the existence of coverage. In that regard, the court noted that Travelers first received that information when it received a copy of Norcraft’s subcontract with KB and agreed to defend approximately one week later.
The court next addressed KB’s argument that Travelers did not provide it with a “complete” defense. KB claimed that Travelers’ defense was not “complete” because it extensively reserved its rights to, among other things, withdrawing its defense if it later determined there was no coverage available under its policy. The court concluded that this argument failed because KB did not explain why Travelers’ reservation of rights violated its duty to defend.
KB also argued that Travelers improperly “entered into a secretly negotiated settlement agreement” with the underlying plaintiffs that resolved their claims arising out of Norcraft’s work. Rejecting KB’s argument that this violated Travelers’ duty to defend, the court wrote:
Since it is undisputed that [Travelers] had the duty to defend, [Travelers] had the right to control settlement negotiations of the covered claims without [KB’s] participation. That [Travelers] settled only the claims arising out of the work of Norcraft does not make the settlement improper, nor does it indicate that [Travelers] further its own interests, and [KB] have not shown that it experienced increased defense fees and costs – outside of what it would have otherwise incurred – due to [Travelers’] withdrawal from the [underlying lawsuit].
Ultimately, the court concluded that, because Travelers “fulfilled its contractual duty to defend [KB] against all claims arising out of the work of Norcraft, . . . [Travelers] did provide a complete defense.” And because it found that Travelers satisfied its duty to provide KB with an “immediate” and “complete” defense, the court found that Travelers was entitled to appoint counsel to defend KB in the underlying lawsuit.
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SOURCE: sedgwickinsurancelaw.com