Rowlee v. Protective Life Insurance Company

1 WO 6 IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 7 FOR THE DISTRICT OF ARIZONA

9 Eva Rowlee, No. CV-23-01124-PHX-MTL 10 Plaintiff, ORDER v. Protective Life Insurance Company, et al., 13 Defendants.

15 Plaintiff asserts a single claim for relief against Defendant, which is breach of the covenant of good faith and fair dealing associated with her deceased husband’s $250,000 life insurance benefit. In addition to compensatory damages, Plaintiff prays for punitive damages and an award of attorney’s fees under A.R.S. § 12-341.01.

19 Federal Courts are courts of limited jurisdiction. Defendant removed this case from Arizona Superior Court for diversity of citizenship. Complete diversity of the parties exists but Plaintiff contests that the $75,000 amount-in-controversy threshold is satisfied.

22 The Court now considers Plaintiff’s Motion to Remand. (Doc. 11) 23 The Court finds Defendant’s arguments opposing remand to be well-taken. First, Plaintiff seeks to recover not only compensatory damages but also punitive damages. A fully successful party can reasonably expect a punitive damages award to represent a multiple of the compensatory damages award. In the context of bad-faith insurance practices, a successful claim arising from a $250,000 life insurance policy is reasonably anticipated to exceed well over $75,000. See Lewis v. Eli Lilly & Co., No. CV-19-05740- PHX-JJT, 2020 WL 5210815, at *2 (D. Ariz. Sept. 1, 2020). Second, Plaintiff declined 2|| Defendant’s offer to stipulate that her claims do not exceed $75,000. As this Court || previously observed, a “plaintiff’s refusal to admit that the combination of these recoveries 4|| would not exceed $75,000 raises the reasonable inference that it would.” Strojnik v. Hyatt || Hotels Corp., No. CV-21-00741-PHX-DWL, 2022 WL 804480, at *7 (D. Ariz. Feb. 18, || 2022) (quoting Oshana v. Coca-Cola Co., 472 F.3d 506, 512 (7th Cir. 2006)) (cleaned up).

7\| The Court finds that Plaintiffs refusal to stipulate to a limited recovery strongly implies || that she values her claims more than the jurisdictional minimum.

9 IT IS ORDERED: 10 1. Plaintiff’s Motion to Remand (Doc. 11) is denied.

11 2. Plaintiff’s request for attorney’s fees under 28 U.S.C. § 1447(c) is denied.

12 Dated this 16th day of August, 2023. " Michak T. Shure 15 Michael T. Liburdi 16 United States District Judge _2-