The Pennsylvania Supreme Court is expected to hear argument on various multi-million dollar insurance cases this month covering a wide gambit of issues, including testimony by a treating physician in Polett v. Public Communications and indemnification in Babcock & Wilcox.

In Polett v. Public Communications, the plaintiff claimed she suffered a right knee injury while filming a promotional video for an artificial knee implant.  The jury ultimately found in favor of the plaintiff awarding her $27.6 million in damages.  However, the jury’s verdict was reversed, in part, based on the defendant’s claim that the plaintiff did not disclose prior to trial that her treating physician would be testifying as an expert witness.  On appeal, the plaintiff argued that her treating physician was exempt from the rule that all experts need to be disclosed prior to trial because he was her treating physician.  The Pennsylvania Supreme Court granted the plaintiff’s appeal and will be hearing argument on whether the trial court judge’s allowance of the plaintiff’s treating physician to give expert testimony on causation was appropriate given the judge’s finding that the physician reached his opinion during the course of treatment and before litigation was anticipated.

In Babcock & Wilcox, the Pennsylvania Superior Court held that when an insurer agrees to defend its insured pursuant to a reservation of rights in connection to a lawsuit, the insured may either accept the insurer’s defense, which would result in the insured being bound by the policy’s consent-to-settle provision or retain its own counsel, allowing the insured to control the litigation (however, these costs would only be covered by the insurer so long as they were found to be fair and reasonable).  The Superior Court noted the lack of Pennsylvania case law on an insurer’s obligation in connection to a policy’s consent-to-settle provision.  As such, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court will hear argument on whether the Superior Court properly held that when an insured settles a lawsuit, after rejecting an insurer’s defense, the insurer is only obligated to cover the amount of the settlement up to the policy limits if the settlement was reasonable and not entered into in bad faith.

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