By Jerry Blanchard ( September 18, 2017, 2:56 PM EDT) -- Investors frequently talk in terms of trying to find the next unicorn, that small startup company that is going to turn into a billion-dollar valuation. Lawyers are like that as well, always looking for that new decision where a court opens a crack in the door of some long held legal theory. Something like this occurred in the 1980s, when the courts in California held that a party could bring a tort action for the breach of the obligation of good faith. The courts were expanding a doctrine that then existed only in the area of insurance contracts. The expansion of this theory to noninsurance contracts generated universal criticism by other courts and scholars across the U.S., and after a 10-year experiment the California Supreme Court reversed its earlier decision for the following reasons: (1) the different objectives underlying the remedies for tort or contract breach, (2) the importance of predictability in assuring commercial stability in contractual dealings, (3) the potential for converting every contract breach into a tort, with accompanying punitive damage recovery, and (4) the preference for legislative action in affording appropriate remedies. (See: Blanchard, Lender Liability: Law, Practice and Prevention, Chapter 4, Bad Faith Tort Claims.)...