Arnold & Placek, P.C. today prevailed on special exceptions which resulted in the Court striking all of Plaintiff’s claims against Texas Mutual. The Plaintiff, James Jones, filed claims including breach of the duty of good faith and fair dealing, violations of the insurance code, violations of the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Mr. Jones’ claims stemmed from a dispute Texas Mutual filed at the Division of Workers’ Compensation regarding whether the Plaintiff’s compensable injury extended to one of his shoulders. Even though Mr. Jones did not seek treatment for his shoulder for many months after the accident, he claimed that Texas Mutual’s administrative dispute delayed him from seeking treatment when he was ready to finally have surgery performed on it.
On special exceptions, Arnold & Placek successfully argued to the Court that all of Mr. Jones’ statutory and common law bad faith claims were precluded, as a matter of law, under the Texas Supreme Court’s recent decision on rehearing in Ruttiger v. Texas Mutual Insurance Company, which was issued only ten days prior to the hearing. The Court agreed, striking all of Mr. Jones’ bad faith claims, and also finding that his allegations of delays in claims handling were insufficient to support his intentional infliction of emotional distress claim. As a result, all of Mr. Jones’ claims against Texas Mutual were struck. Texas Mutual was represented by Scott Placek and Kyle Jones of Arnold & Placek. Kyle Jones argued and obtained the ruling on special exceptions for Texas Mutual.
