Holding Liability Insurers Accountable for Bad Faith Litigation Tactics with the Tort of Abuse of Process

49 Pages Posted: 6 Feb 2003

See all articles by Francis Joseph Mootz III

Francis Joseph Mootz III

University of the Pacific - McGeorge School of Law

Date Written: December 1, 2002

Abstract

Liability insurers generally do not owe any common law duties to injured third-party claimants who sue their insureds. After establishing (as a conceptual backdrop) the important and recognized public policies favoring prompt and fair payments by liability insurers to injured third-party claimants, this article analyzes whether claimants can effectively use the tort of abuse of process to hold liability insurers accountable when they engage in bad faith litigation tactics. The article identifies the problems that claimants may face in alleging abuse of process in the liability insurance setting, but also indicates that recent trends in this area of law suggest that it may provide an effective, even if relatively limited, means of holding liability insurers accountable for the additional injury that they cause to third-party claimants.

Keywords: Abuse of Process, Malicious Defense, Insurance Bad Faith, Liability Insurance

Suggested Citation

Mootz, Francis Joseph, Holding Liability Insurers Accountable for Bad Faith Litigation Tactics with the Tort of Abuse of Process (December 1, 2002). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=359760 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.359760

Francis Joseph Mootz (Contact Author)

University of the Pacific - McGeorge School of Law ( email )

3200 Fifth Avenue
Sacramento, CA 95817
United States

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