Appellate Court Upholds Dismissal of Claims that Defense Attorney Caused Payment of Settlement

Tom Underwood and Mike Sanders successfully defeated an appeal from the dismissal of the claims against their client, an attorney, in a suit alleging that he and another attorney had caused an insurer to settle a suit alleging bad-faith failure to settle. P&W's client had represented the driver of a vehicle involved in an accident, and the other attorney had represented the driver's employer. After trial in the accident case, the employer assigned its rights against the insurer to the plaintiff, and the insurer settled the bad-faith suit that the plaintiff brought against the insurer. The trial court held, and the appellate court affirmed, that P&W's client was not the proximate cause of the insurer's damages because his client had not assigned any rights against the insurer to the underlying plaintiff. Century-Nat'l Ins. Co. v. Schoen, 2017 IL App (1st) 163261-U.