Day: May 14, 2008

Parsin’ and pickin’ – State Farm says “no – but if” to motion for hearing and oral arguments

You’d think anyone that had just cranked out 164 pages of support for their position would jump at the chance to talk the disqualification issue to death – but State Farm didn’t. It simply cranked out another 10 100 pages of parsin’ and pickin’ while accusing the Rigsby sister’s Qui Tam attorneys of same.

State Farm’s memorandum summarizes their Response and supporting Exhibits 1, 2, and 3 in opposition to the motion for a hearing into a three-point argument.

Examining each point provides the opportunity to move beyond parsin’ and pickin’ to the undisputed facts applicable to the Qui Tam claim and relative to the Order of Disqualification and subsequent clarification – starting with the most recently documented undisputed fact.

State Farm’s own attorneys verified the Qui Tam attorneys have no standing related to the McIntosh case in Continue reading “Parsin’ and pickin’ – State Farm says “no – but if” to motion for hearing and oral arguments”

Lumpkin & Reeves disqualified by Order issued today

Judge Senter issued an Order ruling Lumpkin & Reeves are disqualified as counsel for McIntosh in McIntosh v State Farm.

The first opportunity this Court had to address the scope of its Memorandum Opinion [1172] and Order [1173] entered in this cause of action is in its order [1183] dated April 16, 2008, which includes the following excerpt:

The Order [1173] entered in the instant case refers to and includes “other attorneys associated as counsel for the plaintiffs by these firms” and “any other associated counsel.” The Court intentionally used broad language because it was unclear to what extent other lawyers were involved in this and other litigation who might argue, for example, that they had never entered a formal appearance on behalf of plaintiffs and, thus, are eligible to represent one or more of them. Whether appearing or not, actual participation in or connections to this or other litigation are major concerns for the Court.

Clearly, Judge Senter intends to call the shots. Continue reading “Lumpkin & Reeves disqualified by Order issued today”

“Road Home” hard to travel…

Rebecca Mowbray looks at the roadblock surfacing in Louisiana’s Road Home – and, in doing so, reminds us once again of the important role the Sun Herald and Times Picayune are playing in rebuilding.

Hundreds of homeowner insurance settlements are on hold because of a bottleneck at the Road Home program, and more are piling up every day, plaintiffs and defense attorneys say, because of the state’s diligent checks to make sure that people aren’t being overpaid and insurance companies aren’t being subsidized…

“The problem is there’s no time limit for Road Home to respond to the request…It’s killing the homeowners. It’s delaying all settlement checks.” Continue reading ““Road Home” hard to travel…”

Breaking: Allstate Loses Appeal, Florida Suspension is On

Thanks to Mr CLS for the heads up.  From Commissioner McCarty’s office in Tallahassee.

I’m pleased to report that the First District Court today has again affirmed the appropriateness of the Office’s action in issuing the January Immediate Final Order suspending Allstate’s licenses to sell new business in Florida; it has denied Allstate’s request for a rehearing and has lifted the stay of the suspension. As a result, the suspension now is back in effect.

We are currently reviewing the Court’s opinion and the status of Allstate’s compliance with the law, Section 624.318(2), Florida Statutes, which requires them to freely produce documents requested by this Office. We will be issuing a more detailed statement later today.

The suspension applies to Allstate Floridian Insurance Co., Allstate Indemnity Co., Allstate Property & Casualty Insurance Co., Allstate Insurance Co., Allstate Floridian Indemnity Co., Allstate Fire and Casualty Insurance Co., Encompass Insurance Co. of America, Encompass Indemnity Co., Encompass Floridian Insurance Co. and Encompass Floridian Indemnity Co., and it only suspends the companies from writing new business in Florida.

Senate Votes to Renew Flood Insurance Program Part 2: The Politics

Rather than adding on to Nowdy’s post I’ll add the text of today’s Sun Herald Op-Ed on the S. 2284 vote. For what ever reason they mixed in this Reuters story in the online page by Kevin Drawbaugh on the Senate vote which I thought was both fact based and well written. On the front page of today’s Sun Herald is this AP story. We duly noted both Senators Wicker and Cochran voted in favor of S. 2284 while Florida’s Bill Nelson joined Mary Landrieu and David Vitter in voting against passage.

The Mississippi politics behind the vote are somewhat ironic. I suspect Wicker and Cochran’s final yes vote was the price for getting a vote on the wind amendment. Given Travis Childer’s victory in the first district yesterday, 3 of 4 Mississippi’s US Representatives are Democrats. Even hard core Republicans like Alan Lange at Yallpolitics.com now concede the macro political trend away from the GOP may indeed wash over entire state as surely as Katrina’s water washed away the coast. In all honesty I’ve never cared much for Thad Cochran but not for political reasons – he’s always struck me as the Senator for the wealthy but he’ll occupy the seat as long as he wants it. Roger Wicker is the one that is vulnerable as Alan Lange acknowledged today. I personally think Ronnie Musgrove is a deeply flawed candidate but the race is shaping up to be very competitive.

At slabbed we’re happy Senator Wicker’s wind amendment got a vote. But we need more than a vote. We need a solution. In these months leading up to the November election we’ll continue to evaluate the candidates for Trent Lott’s old Senate seat.

Few who come here leave unchanged in some way. Continue reading “Senate Votes to Renew Flood Insurance Program Part 2: The Politics”