A district judge in the Northern District of Illinois has dismissed all claims brought by the Illinois Director of Insurance, acting as rehabilitator for Triad Guaranty Insurance Corporation and Triad Guaranty Assurance Corporation (collectively “Triad”), after it was placed in rehabilitation, against AAMBG Reinsurance, Inc. and Bank of America (“BOA”).
The dispute arose out of an arrangement under which AAMBG provided reinsurance to Triad for private mortgage insurance (PMI) provided by Triad to borrowers with mortgages from a set of lenders that were affiliates of AAMBG. The complaint alleged that AAMBG and BOA breached a contractual duty to disclose to borrowers any benefits the loan originators received from PMI premiums, breached the duty of good faith and fair dealing by only referring borrowers with the highest default risk to Triad, violated RESPA by accepting excessive reinsurance premiums, and were unjustly enriched by these practices. AAMBG and BOA moved to dismiss, and the court dismissed the complaint in its entirety.
In dismissing the breach of contract claim, the court found that the plaintiff had not pointed to anything creating a duty on the part of AAMBG to make any disclosures to borrowers. The court also found that the complaint failed to “allege who the affected borrower was, the specific regulation violated, how it was violated, and, most important, how Triad was damaged.” The court found that the good faith and fair dealing claim was “totally implausible,” as it did “not make economic sense” for AAMBG to send poor risks to Triad when, under a hypothetical offered by the plaintiff, AAMBG would actually be responsible for a larger portion of the loss than would Triad. Fourth, the court found that the plaintiff had made no attempt to show that the safe harbor provision of RESPA Section 8(c) did not apply to AAMBG’s reinsurance contract with Triad, as the complaint did not allege that the agreement to provide reinsurance was illusory. The court also found that the RESPA claim was barred by the statute of limitations, rejecting a “continuing violation” theory put forth by the plaintiff and finding that the limitations period began to run when Triad last purchased reinsurance from AAMBG. Finally, the court rejected the unjust enrichment claim because the parties’ relationship was governed by a contract.
People ex rel. Dowling v. AAMBG Reinsurance, Inc., 16 C 7477 (N.D. Ill. June 1, 2017)
This post written by Jason Brost.
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