While ruling that a $5.1 million bad-faith verdict against an insurance company should not have been vacated, the Pennsylvania Superior Court also held that the judgment was unenforceable.

In Schriner v. One Beacon Insurance, a three-judge panel held that the plaintiffs—tenants who sued their landlords for toxic mold-related injuries and then went after the landlords' insurance company after releasing them from liability and taking up their claims—could not collect the judgment plus delay damages because the landlords, as insureds, were no longer liable.

The litigation has a complicated history that includes a separate legal malpractice case, but the relevant facts in Schriner are as follows: The tenants sued the landlords in 2004, and after assuming their claims against the insurance company, filed their bad-faith suit in 2011 to collect the 2010 judgment.