Mutual had a legitimate or arguable reason for delaying payment of Mrs. Casey’s benefits and whether such delay was a willful or malicious wrong. As Mrs. Casey argues, Mississippi workers’ compensation carriers are required to pay the first installment of compensation within fourteen days of receiving notice of the claim. See Miss.Code Ann. § 71-3-37(2) (“The first installment of compensation shall become due on the fourteenth day (14th) after the employer has notice ... of injury or death.... ”). But carriers also have a duty “to fully investigate all relevant facts” surrounding a claim, Caldwell v. Alfa Ins. Co., 686 So.2d 1092, 1099 (Miss.1996), and some delay in payment is permitted while the carrier satisfies this duty despite the fourteen-day requirement, see, e.g., id. at 1098 (<HOLDING>); Pilate, 865 So.2d at 400-01 (permitting a
holding that mere delay in payment for a while would not be a material breach holding that a fivemonth delay in filing a motion to disqualify did not bar the motion where there was a reasonable explanation for the delay holding that the plaintiffs counsel were not entitled to compensation for a seventeenmonth delay in the payment of approximately 11500 in attorneys fees in one matter and a fourteenmonth delay in the payment of approximately 8000 in fees in another matter because the delay itself was not very long and the amount of fees not very high holding that a 103day delay in payment did not amount to bad faith because the carrier gave a reasonable explanation for the delay in payment it was continuing its investigation holding that a partys explanation that the delay in paying costs was caused by a desire to avoid seeking public assistance in payment did not rebut inference