American Safety Casualty Insurance Co. v. City of Waukegan

F. Supp. 2d (N.D. Ill. 2011)

Words & Phrases

Bad Faith: Statutory

Trial Judge

Virginia Kendall

Holding

Expert witnesses may not make legal conclusions in their reports; analysis about what a “reasonable claims handler” would conclude is not permissible.

Fact Summary

American Safety Casualty Insurance sought declaratory judgment that it did not owe coverage to Waukegan for its obligations in a different lawsuit. Waukegan counterclaimed against American Safety and numerous other counter-defendants. American Safety and the counter-defendants moved to strike Waukegan’s expert witness report in its entirety, arguing that the report consisted of inadmissible legal conclusions.

The court granted the motion to strike with respect to the section of the report in which the expert set forth legal conclusions about the legal obligations and duties owed under the various insurance policies at issue in the case. Experts may not make legal conclusions that will determine the outcome of a case, and the court found that this section of the report consisted exclusively of legal conclusions and recitations of the various policies. The expert’s analysis about what a “reasonable claims handler” would conclude was duplicative of the analysis expected of the court in addressing the various summary judgment motions.

The court allowed the section in which the expert explained the general process of handling liability claims and the section in which he analyzed the procedures employed by the insurers’ claims handlers. Experts may testify about industry standards and how a party’s conduct measured up against those standards. Here, the expert’s reference to Illinois law and the fact that the law guides claims handlers’ behavior was not an improper legal conclusion about whether the handlers acted in bad faith.

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