California Appellate Tracker

Nickerson v. Stonebridge Life Ins. Co.

June 14, 2016

In an insurance bad faith action, Brandt legal fees that the insured incurs in his successful effort to obtain insurance benefits are actual damages which must be included with other actual damages in computing the actual to punitive ratio, even if the parties stipulate to having the trial judge set Brandt fees after the jury has awarded both other actual and all punitive damages.

This decision affirms a trial court’s remittitur of punitive damages in an insurance bad faith case from the $19 million awarded by the jury to ten times the actual damages awarded, which with Brandt fees included as actual damages under Nickerson v. Stonebridge Life Ins. Co. (2016) 63 Cal.4th 363, brought the punitive damage award to $475,000. Though the defendant caused only economic not physical injury, in every other respect, its conduct was highly reprehensible, relying on a limitation hidden in the policy’s definition section to deny disabled and impecunious insureds the benefits they reasonably expected their insurance to provide for needed medical treatment.

California Court of Appeal, Second District, Division 3 (Aldrich, J.); November 3, 2016; 2016 WL 6520112

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Nickerson v. Stonebridge Life Ins. Co.

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