In Kofsky v. Unum Life Ins. Co. of America, Kofsky filed a declaratory judgment action against his insurer and broker alleging that the defendants unilaterally canceled his insurance policy on an undetermined date without prior notice, despite his premium payment and request that his policy be reinstated.  Kofsky sought damages based on fraud, breach of fiduciary duty and bad faith.

The fraud claim was dismissed as Kofsky failed to meet the heightened pleading standards of the Federal Rules and the court refused to relax the standards as the necessary factual information was not within the defendants’ control.  The court noted that there was no reason that Kofsky could not have identified in his complaint the misrepresentations that he alleged were made to him by the defendants.

The court also dismissed his breach of fiduciary claim as Kofsky failed to plead any facts in support of such a claim.  In reaching its determination, the court refused to adopt Kofsky’s argument that his claims for breach of the duty of good faith and fair dealing could act as a basis for his breach of fiduciary claim and noted that under Pennsylvania law, a breach of fiduciary claim could not be based on such things.

Finally, the court dismissed the bad faith claim against the broker, ruling that bad faith claims could only be brought against an insurer and not an insurance broker.  However, Kofsky’s claim against his insurer was allowed to proceed, because if the court accepted the allegations in the complaint as true, then the insurance company’s cancelation of the policy despite payment of the premium could constitute bad faith.

Thanks to Colleen Hayes for her contribution to this post.  For more information, please contact Nicole Y. Brown at .