Insurance Bad Faith

Donahue & Horrow LLP’s lead disability insurance attorney Michael Horrow filed a lawsuit against Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, alleging that the company breached the insurance contract by improperly denying his client’s disability claim, and that the denial was in bad faith.

Our client is a physician who specializes in internal medicine and infectious disease who obtained his disability insurance coverage through the Cooperative of American Physicians, Inc.  After a long, successful medical career, in September 2021, our client became unable to continue working due to a variety of conditions, including, primarily, mast cell activation syndrome, a condition where immune system cells called mast cells release too many chemicals too often, causing repeated, severe allergic-type symptoms in multiple parts of the body.  Our client was also diagnosed with eosinophilic esophagitis, antibody deficiency and dysautonomia.  

As a result of these conditions, our client had great difficulty performing basic activities of daily living that most healthy individuals take for granted, such as eating, bathing and sitting in a chair for an extended period of time.  He was also unable to drive.  With these restrictions and limitations, he was certainly unable to provide his patients with the care and treatment they needed on a full-time basis.

Initially, MetLife agreed, paid, and approved his claim.  The Social Security Administration also agreed that our client was unable to continue working, and approved his claim for SSDI benefits.  However, after about three years, MetLife’s paid physicians suddenly decided that he could return to work.  Importantly, the insurance company could not point to an improvement in his condition that would explain its sudden decision to deny his claim.  Nor did the insurance company offer a substantive response to the letters of support our client prepared by his treating physicians.  Instead, MetLife simply reiterated the opinions offered by physicians who it paid to prepare reports.

Given our client’s residence in Los Angeles County, Donahue & Horrow filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles County Superior Court. Shortly thereafter, MetLife’s attorneys filed paperwork to remove the matter to the Central District of California in Downtown Los Angeles. Michael Horrow and his team will work to guarantee that MetLife is held liable, not only for breaching the insurance contract, but for doing so in bad faith. If your disability insurance claim has been denied or terminated, call Donahue & Horrow LLP at (877) 664-5407 for a free consultation.