Opinion ID: 1097684
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Blue Cross Misconnection

Text: The majority's treatment of our recent decision in Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Mississippi v. Campbell, 466 So.2d 833 (Miss. 1984) is troublesome on several fronts, one of which has been mentioned. The majority's primary reference to Blue Cross regards the matter of who decides whether an arguable reason exists, 466 So.2d at 842, the problem with which is that the premise stated refers neither to what the trial judge did in this case, nor what he should have done, and simply plays no discernable role in the overall structure of the majority opinion and its view of how bad faith refusal cases should be handled. Conversely, the majority completely ignores the principal passage from Blue Cross I would have thought relevant here  that ordinarily, where the insurer has a reason for denying a claim sufficient that it survives the plaintiff insured's motion for a directed verdict or peremptory instruction on the liability feature of the underlying contract claim, the insurer should thereupon become insulated from an award of punitive damages. Blue Cross, 466 So.2d at 842-43. Because of their importance, I will discuss these two points with some care.