April 2013 Bad Faith Cases: Third Circuit Affirm’s Trial Court’s Threshold Finding Of No Standing To Bring Assigned Bad Faith Claim Or Contract Claim (Third Circuit)

In Feingold v. State Farm Mutual Auto Insurance Company, the Third Circuit, in a non-precedential summary opinion, affirmed the trial court’s decision that an insured could not assign its statutory bad faith claim, and that it was against public policy in this instance to assign the breach of contract claim. The District Court’s decision is described more at length in this entry.
The Third Circuit stated: “The District Court concluded that, as a threshold jurisdictional matter, Feingold had not alleged an Article III injury, and, therefore, lacked standing to pursue his claims against State Farm. We agree, and after review of the briefs and appendices submitted by the parties, we find no basis for disturbing the exceedingly thorough and well-reasoned April 3, 2012 opinion of the District Court. We thus affirm the order of the District Court substantially for the reasons set forth in its opinion.”
Date of Decision: April 23, 2013
Feingold v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., No. 12-2664, United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit (3d Cir. April 23, 2013) (Barry, J.)