The court granted the plaintiff’s motion to remand the case to state court, where the insurer had failed to establish that the $75,000 jurisdictional threshold had been met.

Following a motor vehicle accident, the insured sought coverage under her Safeco policy for stacked coverage. Safeco paid the unstacked limits, and the plaintiff filed suit, requesting stacked coverage and claiming insurance bad faith. The case was removed to federal court. The plaintiff filed a motion to remand, claiming that the insurer had failed to meet its burden of showing that the amount in controversy met the $75,000 jurisdictional threshold. Safeco responded that the past and future medical expenses, lost wages, legal fees and non-economic damages met the threshold. The court considered that the insurer’s argument assumes that the value of the bad faith claim should be counted towards the jurisdictional amount. However, the court held that it is well-settled Florida law that an insurance bad faith claim does not ripen until the underlying case is resolved against the insurer. As a result, the court abated the bad faith claim as premature and held that a non-ripe bad faith claim has zero value with regard to the amount in controversy. As a result, the plaintiff’s motion to remand the case to state court was granted since the jurisdictional threshold had not been met.

Case Law Alerts, 3rd Quarter, July 2014