After James Brightman obtained a $1,787,500 judgment against Lynn Martin and Gregory Cumbo for injuries suffered in a 1992 automobile collision, Martin assigned to Brightman her bad faith claim against her insurance company, Cotton States Mutual Insurance Company. Brightman sued Cotton States for its bad faith and negligent refusal to settle the personal injury action, the jury returned a verdict in his favor, and the Court of Appeals for the State of Georgia affirmed.1 We granted a writ of certiorari to consider whether an insurer is liable under Southern General Insurance Company v. Holt 2 when it fails to tender its policy limits because the plaintiff’s demand contains a condition beyond the insurer’s control. We hold that an insurance company in a case involving multiple insurers may be liable to its insured on a bad faith claim when it fails to tender its policy limits in response to a settlement offer solely because the offer also seeks the policy limits from other insurers. Because there was sufficient evidence for the jury to find that Cotton States acted unreasonably in failing to tender its policy limits in response to Brightman’s settlement offer in January 1995, we affirm. Brightman was seriously injured in August 1992 when the van owned by Martin and driven by Cumbo struck his car as he was turning left at an intersection controlled by a traffic light. Police charged Brightman with failure to yield the right of way and charged Cumbo with speeding and causing serious injury by a vehicle. Police later charged Cumbo with driving under the influence based on a blood test that revealed the presence of marijuana metabolites in his blood. There was no evidence at the scene that Cumbo’s driving was impaired.
On January 31, 1994, Brightman’s attorney wrote Cotton States offering to settle his claims against Martin and Cumbo for $300,000, which was the limits of Martin’s policy of liability insurance. The letter said that Brightman had sustained traumatic brain injury and attached medical bills totaling $329,457.20. On April 20, 1994, Cotton States declined to accept the offer to settle for the policy limits, citing a police officer’s testimony that Brightman caused the accident, the company’s inability to discover how a second officer calculated Cumbo’s speed, and its desire to await the outcome of Cumbo’s DUI case. As a result, Brightman withdrew his offer to settle.
