Bad Faith Experts After Kumho

Increasingly, plaintiffs in bad faith cases have turned to so-called bad faith experts to help make their case. Courts have often accepted this relatively new species of expert testimony uncritically, allowing these putative experts to testify not simply to the duties of a claims handler, but also to such topics as the insurer's reasons for acting as it did toward the insured¹ and whether the insurer has an overall practice of cheating its insureds.² The Supreme Court's recent decision in Kumho Tire Co. v. Carmichael,³ however, should provide insurers with a potent new weapon against the bad faith expert.