Safeco Insurance Company of Illinois v. Christine A. Beare

Petitioner, Safeco Insurance Company, challenges the trial court’s order abating plaintiffs claim against it for bad faith refusal to settle the plaintiffs uninsured/underinsured motorist (“UM”) claim, rather than dismissing the claim in favor of a separate suit. Petitioner contends that the abatement precludes it from removing the case to federal court. Although we have held, in a third party bad faith case, that an order which prevented removal of a case to federal court constituted irreparable harm and departed from the essential requirements of law, in this case we conclude that, even…