American Reliance Insurance v. National General InsuranceAmerican Reliance Insurance v. National General Insurance
In an action, inter alia, to recover damages for the bad-faith failure to settle a personal injury lawsuit within the limits of a policy of insurance, the plaintiff appeals, as limited by its brief, from so much of an order of the Supreme Court, Queens County (Joy, J.), dated March 21, 1988, as granted the defendants’ motion to compel an oral deposition pursuant to CPLR 3101.
Ordered that the order is affirmed insofar as appealed from, with one bill of costs; and it is further,
Ordered that the deposition shall be conducted upon written notice of not less than 10 days to be given by the defendants to the plaintiff, or at such time as the parties may agree.
The plaintiff, the issuer of an excess insurance policy, commenced this action against the primary insurer and its attorney, upon the theory that they did not exercise good faith in the negotiation and settlement of the underlying tort claim. The plaintiff specifically alleged, in its bill of particulars, that the defendants refused to cooperate with the plaintiff’s attorney by failing to provide counsel with information which was necessary to properly evaluate the tort action.
We find, as did the Supreme Court, that the defendants are entitled to depose the attorney who represented the plaintiff in connection with the negotiation and settlement of the lawsuit upon which this action is based, since the plaintiff has affirmatively placed in issue its attorney’s knowledge of facts or communications which might tend to prove bad faith on the part of the defendants (see, Slabakis v Drizin,
We note, moreover, that the plaintiff’s efforts to shield itself from disclosure of relevant information under the guise of the attorney-client privilege is unavailing (see, Zurich Ins. Co. v State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co.,
We have examined the plaintiff’s remaining contention and