Litigation
Ca. Litig. Rev. 2017
Insurance Law
By Stephen Raucher and Michael Sohigian
Introduction
Although the California Supreme Court did not issue an opinion on insurance issues in 2017, the Courts of Appeal were busy. And while insurance companies scored a number of victories, particularly in giving effect to exclusions, on balance policyholders came out ahead in 2017, with courts requiring that carriers provide a defense in a number of construction-related contexts, as well as circumscribing the genuine dispute doctrine as a basis for combatting bad faith and making it more difficult for insurance companies to rescind policies in the face of ambiguous application questions.