Insurance Bad Faith
The firm has effectively represented many individuals
and small business against a variety of insurance companies.
Led by Michael H. Whitehill, Kussman & Whitehill has elicited
numerous multi-million dollar jury awards and seven figure
settlements on behalf of its clients. Kussman & Whitehill
has successfully litigated many insurance coverage disputes
and consistently established insurance bad faith against insurance
companies operating in California, including Farmers Insurance
Company, State Farm Insurance Company, Allstate Insurance
Company, and Twentieth Century Insurance Company.
Kussman & Whitehill has represented individuals, where
life, disability, property and liability insurance carriers
have refused to honor their contractual obligations. For example,
Kussman & Whitehill recently settled a case for just under
2 million dollars where an insurer wrongly refused to come
to the defense of a small business owner sued for the wrongful
death of a child. In another case, Kussman& Whitehill
represented a homeowner whose rental home burned down. When
the insurance company refused to pay the claim a lawsuit was
filed. The jury returned a verdict for the homeowner including
12 million dollars in punitive damages. The verdict
was affirmed on appeal in its entirety and is thought to be
the largest punitive damage verdict ever upheld on appeal
in California.
In another multi-million dollar jury verdict the firm represented
a trucker whose insurance company denied his claim when his
truck was destroyed. As a result of the insurance company's
failure to pay the claim the client's trucking business was
destroyed. The jury returned a verdict of 2.5 million dollars
including 2 million in punitive damages.
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