Rich Dolder of Slappey & Sadd. (Courtesy photo)

Following last year's Cobb County verdict awarding more than $4.7 million to a student injured while playing "bubble soccer" as part of his high school soccer team's year-end party, fresh litigation filed in federal court claims the company's insurer acted in bad faith by failing to settle pretrial demands within its $1 million policy limit.

"This is a sad example of how an insurance company's refusal to settle harms Georgia businesses," said Rich Dolder of Slappey & Sadd, who filed the complaint with partner Jay Sadd on behalf of now-defunct Game Truck Georgia. 

"The plaintiff's lawyers begged the insurance company to settle," said Dolder, but insurer Atlantic Specialty Insurance "insisted on a trial." 

The hefty judgment contributed to the company's demise, he said.

"A Georgia business is gone and jobs lost because an insurance company decided to gamble rather than settle," Dolder said.

The attorney for Atlantic Specialty in the just-filed litigation, Seth Friedman of Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith, was unavailable for comment Wednesday.

The plaintiff in the underlying case, Salvador Reyes Quezada, was a Campbell High senior and a varsity soccer player when he was injured a few weeks before graduation in 2016.

Reyes incurred nearly $120,000 in medical bills from brain and skull injuries he suffered when he ran into another student and was knocked unconscious playing bubble soccer, in which players are covered with clear, inflated plastic bubbles from their heads to below their waists.

According to the complaint filed last week in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, Atlantic Specialty first turned down an offer to settle Reyes' claims for $750,000, then ignored a second demand for $1 million. 

A few months before trial, the complaint said, Atlantic Specialty sent its insured, Game Truck, a letter warning that "there is a possibility that the claim asserted against you could exceed your available insurance limits" of $1 million.

Even so, the next day Atlantic Specialty sent Reyes' lawyers an offer to settle for $250,000.

Reyes refused, and last September a jury delivered a post-apportionment award that, including prejudgment interest, totaled more than $4.7 million.

In December, Cobb County State Court Judge Carl Bowers awarded an additional $176,000 in attorney fees and expenses to Reyes' trial team, Brad Thomas and Michael Goldberg of Fried Rogers Goldberg and Bill Curtis of Smyrna's William H. Curtis Law Office.

At trial, Game Truck was represented by Craig White of Skedsvold & White.

Atlantic Specialty posted an appellate bond of $1 million after the trial, the federal complaint said. 

"Thus, Game Truck is exposed to the possibility that Reyes will seek to seize its game trailers and take other efforts to collect on that portion of the judgment that is not bonded," it said. "This possibility constitutes a real and immediate threat to Game Truck and its ability to resurrect its business and/or take other steps to mitigate its losses."

Atlantic Specialty "had multiple valid and reasonable opportunities to settle the claims against Game Truck within policy limits," said the complaint, which includes counts for bad faith failure to settle, attorney fees and punitive damages. 

Goldberg, who is not involved in the new federal litigation, said the case illustrates the unreasonable pressures insurer decisions can place on plaintiff and defense lawyers.

"There has been a lot of press lately about 'nuclear verdicts.' I don't believe there are any such things," Goldberg said. "In every case with a large verdict, the plaintiff makes a reasonable demand that is rejected by the insurance company."

Forced to go to trial and try to keep the verdict low "puts the defense lawyer in an impossible situation where they are having to convince jurors of arguments that are the equivalent of saying the Earth is really flat."

"In our case, this is exactly what happened," said Goldberg. At trial, defense lawyer White "was forced to try and convince the jury that the defendant did nothing wrong" and keep the verdict below an offer that "was an insult for what Salvador suffered. The verdict recognized the true loss suffered by our client and was in the range where everyone evaluated the case."