News Currents

Pa. bad faith claim costs $20 million

An insurer has agreed to pay $20 million in what is believed to be the state’s richest settlement of a bad faith claim.

According to the plaintiff’s attorney, Robert Mongeluzzi of Saltz Mongeluzzi Barrett & Bendesk, Princeton Insurance Co. has agreed to the $20 million in mediation of a bad faith claim filed in Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas.

Princeton did not admit liability in the settlement, Mongeluzzi said.

The case involved a road worker who was paralyzed after being struck by a drunk driver who left a tavern that Princeton insured.

The $20 million is in addition to the $1 million Princeton was previously required to pay under the limits on the tavern’s $1 million policy after it lost its appeal on the dram shop case.

A jury awarded the accident victim $75 million, an award that a judge later cut in half. But that large award was never paid because the tavern had only $1 million in insurance. The tavern assigned its rights to the victim, who sued Princeton for bad faith, charging that the insurer failed to negotiate a settlement within the policy’s $1 million limits after the verdict.

Passengers have duty to aid crash victims in N.J.

Two passengers who witnessed their intoxicated friend crash his car into the back of a motorcycle and then be hit by another car had an obligation to help the injured man, a New Jersey appellate court has ruled.

The driver and his passengers made 44 cell phone calls within two and one-half hours, but none for emergency assistance, court records show. Instead, they agreed to keep quiet and fled, and the rider was struck by another driver and died.

“It is the degree of defendants’ involvement, coupled with the serious peril threatening imminent death to another that might have been avoided with little effort and inconvenience, suggested by the evidence, that in our view creates a sufficient relation to impose a duty of action,” the court found.

Pa. therapist not liable for patient’s car crash

A psychiatrist cannot be sued for a car crash caused by a patient, a Pennsylvania appeals court ruled.

The Superior Court ruling upholds a decision written by a Blair County judge dismissing the lawsuit filed by Matthew Stever of Altoona, who was injured in a head-on crash caused by Crystal Ickes on Aug. 5, 2004.

Ickes was killed in the accident, so Stever sued her psychiatrist, Dr. Joseph Antonowicz of the Altoona Regional Health System. Stever argued that the doctor had a responsibility to preclude Ickes from driving, knowing there was danger in mixing antidepressant drugs and methadone. In his ruling, Judge Tim Sullivan cited four Superior and state Supreme Court cases in which doctors were deemed not responsible for accidents caused by patients.

Va. police turn on the cameras

Virginia State Police are using digital cameras that can scan highways and parking lots for hot cars and stolen license plates. Using the digital images, police can compare the plates against any database of license plates: those associated with fugitives, stolen cars, plates that have been stolen, and so on.

State police began using the $16,000 readers several months ago. Their models take 25 photos per second, said Carl Fisher, a special agent with the Help Eliminate Auto Theft, or HEAT, a program of the State Police. Officers only have to turn the system on, and if it gets a hit, an alarm sounds. A computer checks the plates against the latest FBI “hot sheet” of stolen autos. The equipment can scan plates day or night.

Hampton police have the readers; other departments are testing them. Richmond police scanned 88,000 vehicles and recovered 30 stolen vehicles and 28 sets of stolen plates during a several weeks long operation, Fisher said.

Virginia’s auto theft rate has dropped 38 percent since 1991, according to a 2005 report by HEAT.

R.I. drivers denied day to prove insurance

Siding with State Police who said it would create an “unnecessary and burdensome increase in paperwork,” Rhode Island Gov. Don Carcieri for the second year has vetoed a bill to give motorists who are ticketed for not carrying proof of insurance a day to present such proof. Carcieri cited police concerns that the added day would complicate the current system under which hard copies of citations are sent to court once a week. Carcieri also said the proposal would also impede current plans by the police to modernize its ticket procedures through electronic filing.