Peterson v. Western National Mutual Insurance Co.
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The Supreme Court affirmed the judgment of the district court awarding taxable costs for denying a first-party insurance claim in violation of Minn. Stat. 604.18, subd. 2(a), holding that the district court did not clearly err.
After a bench trial, the district court found that Western National Mutual Insurance Company did not have a reasonable basis for denying Alison Joel Peterson's claim for insurance benefits and acted in reckless disregard of its lack of a reasonable basis in denying the claim. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding (1) the district court did not clearly err in determining that a reasonable insurer, who had the information that Western National had, would not have denied Peterson's claim for benefits; and (2) the district court did not clearly err by finding that Western National knew, or recklessly disregarded information that would have allowed it to know, that it lacked an objectively reasonable basis for denying benefits to Peterson.
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