In Bolden v. O'Connor Cafe of Worcester, Inc., 50 Mass.App.Ct. 56, 734 N.E.2d 726 (2000), the plaintiff in a dramshop case obtained a jury verdict in her favor. She then settled with the defendant dram shop and received an assignment of the defendant's claim against its liability insurer. The plaintiff and defendant then sought to dismiss the defendant's appeal in the dram shop trial verdict, but the defendant's liability insurer sought to intervene to prosecute the appeal, arguing that in a separate unfair claims practices suit, it would be unable to reopen the issue of the defendant-insured's liability. The appellate court affirmed the trial judge's denial of the insurer's motion to intervene. The appellate court first characterized the insurer's argument as follows: "Were the insurer able to appeal successfully, the argument goes, with the result that insured was no longer liable, then the insurer would be home free in the . . . lawsuit it faces for unfair settlement practices. The insurer explains it thus: it could not be faulted in the unfair settlement practices case for not having made fair offers in the tort case once insured's liability became reasonably clear because insured never was liable at all and its liability, accordingly, could never have been reasonably clear." 50 Mass.App.Ct. at 63, 734 N.E.2d at 732. In rejecting this argument, the court explained: The issues to be determined in the unfair settlement practices claim do not in fact concern defendant-insured's actual liability. The insurer's settlement practices could be entirely without fault and the insurer accordingly immune from unfair settlement practices liability, yet the dramshop jury could still have found defendant-insureds liable for dramshop liability. The insurer need not show at the unfair settlement practices trial that defendant-insured was without fault. What the insurer must instead do there is show that its settlement offers in the dramshop case were reasonable and made in good faith, given its own knowledge at the time of the relevant facts and law concerning the plaintiffs' claim. The resolution of the unfair settlement practices claim, including the issue of bad faith, will depend upon a factual determination of the insurer's knowledge and intent. Accordingly, the insurer will not need to attack collaterally the dramshop liability judgment in order to prove in the unfair settlement practices case that defendant-insured was not actually liable and therefore that the insurer is also not liable for unfair settlement practices. Rather, the insurer need only demonstrate that defendant-insured's liability was not "reasonably clear" to the insured, not to the jury that heard the dramshop liability case. Otherwise put, notwithstanding what the dramshop liability jury concluded about defendant-insured's liability, what matters in the unfair settlement practices case is whether the insured reasonably believed that defendant-insured's liability was not clear, or was unreasonable in holding that belief. "So long as the insurer acts in good faith, the insurer is not held to standards of omniscience or perfection; it has leeway to use, and should consistently employ, its honest business judgment." Peckham v. Continental Cas. Ins. Co., 895 F.2d 830, 835 (1st Cir. 1990). Because defendant-insured's actual liability will not be "retried" in the unfair settlement practices suit, we conclude that the insurer will be able to defend itself without impairment on the relevant issues in the unfair settlement practices suit. (50 Mass.App.Ct. at 66-67, 734 N.E.2d at 734-35.)