Boehm Brown Partner Focus
 Janet L. Brown was recently awarded the inaugural WIND Presidential Recognition Award at the 2010 Windstorm Insurance Conference in Jacksonville, Florida.
The award was established to recognize annually a member who has contributed significant knowledge, service and leadership to better the Windstorm Insurance Network (WIND). Janet has served on numerous board positions with the association, including past President, Conference Chair, Umpire Program Committee Chair, and workshop faculty presenter at every annual and regional WIND conference.
The Windstorm Insurance Network is an member association exclusively dedicated to educating its members on issues of significance to the insurance industry and related professional fields, arising from windstorms and wind-related natural disasters. (Posted 4/8/10)
And The Defense Wins
Published 04-14-10 by DRI
 DRI member Wayne D. Taylor of Mozley, Finlayson & Loggins, LLP in Atlanta, Georgia, along with a colleague, teamed with DRI member Janet L. Brown of Boehm, Brown, Fischer, Harwood, Kelly & Scheihing, P.A. in Orlando, Florida, to obtain summary judgment for Westchester Surplus Lines Insurance Company in a property damage bad faith lawsuit filed by Waters Edge Living, LLC and Waters Edge JW, LLC in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Florida.
The lawsuit stemmed from a dispute over allocation of insurance proceeds from Hurricane Katrina-related damages to five insured properties. Westchester paid its policy limits directly to its named insured. The plaintiffs filed suit, claiming that Westchester breached an agreement with the plaintiffs to pay its policy limits directly to plaintiffs, who were not the named insured in the policy. The plaintiffs also sued for bad faith.
The district court granted summary judgment to Westchester on all counts. The court found that Westchester never agreed to pay the plaintiffs directly and that Westchester issued payment exactly as required by the policy’s loss payable provision. With respect to the plaintiffs’ bad faith claims, the court held that those claims must fail as a matter of law because the plaintiffs did not allege a breach of the insurance policy, but rather a breach of a settlement agreement. Even if the plaintiffs had alleged a breach of the insurance policy, the court held that the claims would fail because the policy’s loss payable provision provided Westchester with a reasonable basis for issuing payment to its insured. See Waters Edge Living, LLC and Waters Edge JW, LLC v. Westchester Surplus Lines Insurance Company, civil action no. 4:08-cv-69-SPM, United States District Court for the Northern District of Florida for further information.
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