The plaintiff, Bunge North America, sought liability insurance coverage related to its environmental liabilities from, among others, Travelers Casualty. Bunge moved to compel certain documents from Travelers, which motion was granted by a magistrate judge. United States Fire Insurance Co. v. Bunge North America, Inc., Case No. 05-CV-2192 (USDC D. Kan. June 4, 2008) (magistrate’s order). Travelers sought review of the magistrate judge’s order with the district judge. The motion for review was denied in its entirety. The district court made three rulings affirming the reasoning used by the magistrate judge. First, Bunge was entitled to agreements Travelers had with a broker, and the date and amount of payments made to the broker, relating to Bunge insurance policies. These documents were found to be relevant to the issue of whether Bunge properly notified Travelers of its claims via the broker, Travelers’ putative agent. Second, Bunge was entitled to documents relating to a similar claim paid to a different Travelers insured on the same environmental liability issue. This information was relevant to Travelers’ knowledge of the issues and the consistency of its positions, as well as Bunge’s bad faith claim. Finally, the district judge refused to disallow the possibility that Bunge could collected its fees and costs associated with the motion to compel. Although the magistrate judge had found that the relevance of the requests were not apparent on their face, the district judge stated that relevance can be clarified by a party after the fact, so the issue of whether the opposing party’s objections are “substantially justified” (the standard to avoid the payment of fees and costs) was subject to further litigation before the magistrate judge. United States Fire Insurance Co. v. Bunge North America, Inc., Case No. 05-CV-2192 (USDC D. Kan. July 3, 2008) (district judge’s order).
This post written by Brian Perryman.