Reinsurance Focus

In a putative class action involving captive reinsurance “sham” contracts, and illegal kickbacks in the residential mortgage insurance industry in violation of the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act, the Middle District of Pennsylvania denied Defendant-insurers’ motion to stay proceedings pending the resolution of a factually similar case, Riddle v. Bank of America Corp., pending in the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. A court may stay proceedings so as to abide by the outcome of another case that may substantially affect it or be dispositive of the issues, but the appropriateness of such a stay is conditioned on the claims from both proceedings being factually indistinguishable. In Riddle, the court imposed a narrow limitation on discovery, allowing discovery only on the issue of whether Plaintiffs engaged in due diligence following execution of their mortgages. The Cunningham court, however, determined that such a limitation was too narrow, ruling that the equitable tolling doctrine is an entangled, “two-pronged [inquiry] into both plaintiffs’ and defendants’ conduct,” the latter of which encompasses Defendants’ attempts to collectively and fraudulently conceal the improprieties of the reinsurance arrangements. The court found that whether the Third Circuit’s decision in Riddle will control or substantially inform the Cunningham court’s outcome is indeterminable, as Defendants’ contention that the record to be developed in discovery will be identical to the record in Riddle is entirely speculative and premature. Cunningham v. M&T Bank Corp., Case No. 1:12-cv-01238-CCC-SES (M.D. Pa. Jan. 14, 2014).

This post written by Kyle Whitehead.

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