Allstate Agrees To Record-Setting Settlement In Insurance Bad-Faith Case
By Molly Daly
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - A landmark settlement was reached in Philadelphia Monday in a bad-faith case involving a major insurance company that refused payment to a young man who was badly injured in a 2009 car accident.
The multi-million dollar payout is the highest insurance bad-faith settlement in Pennsylvania history.
24-year-old Patrick Hennesey was a passenger when his friend rear-ended another vehicle on Roosevelt Boulevard. When he hopped out and tried to push his friend's car off the road, Hennessey was hit, suffering terrible injuries and losing a leg.
Attorney Matt Casey says the friend's auto insurer should've honored its policy:
"Allstate had an opportunity several years ago to pay a $250,000 policy limit for its insured, but declined to do so on several occasions over many years.
Instead, it's paying 88 times that -- $22-million.
"It both sends a message to insurers to do right by and adhere to their obligations to their insures, but it also is a David versus Goliath story," Casey says. "This young man was courageous, and he didn't back down, and that's a lesson for all of us."