Renfroe’s employment agreement and Code of Conduct do not forbid employees from disclosing fraud to policyholders or to the public – So says the Rigsbys’ counsel in their latest filing on the Motion for Summary Judgment re: plaintiff Renfroe’s claim of breach of contract.
The employment agreement and Code of Conduct do not forbid employees of Renfroe from disclosing fraud to policyholders or to the public. (See Employment agreement attached as Exhibit F & E) Renfroe employees are not to be complicit in fraud on policyholders. (See Jana Renfroe Depo. I, at 254:14-22 & 353:9-10).
And, so they say, Renfroe employees who observe fraud are permitted to report it to the authorities and to turn over documentary evidence without the consent of Renfroe.
In fact, they not only say, they show as evidence a Gene Refroe letter to Kerri Rigsby, dated September 1, 2006 (Exhibit G). Cori got one, too, by the way.
We understand that you have or may have provided documents or other information to law enforcement authorities. We support your behavior in that respect, and do not question its propriety or appropriateness.” (emphasis added)
What a puzzle it must have been to receive this letter and then days later find the propriety and appropriateness of their behavior the subject of a lawsuit Renfroe filed in Alabama.
In order to have a summary judgment there must be undisputed facts that both sides stipulate to and here we are seeing the Rigsbys’ latest of the back and forth of the issues. There were 33 exhibits attached to this filing. For the purpose of easier reading I will dispose of citing the exhibits.
Renfroe has conceded that those disclosures did not violate the nondisclosure clause of the employment agreement. (See Transcript Hearing 11/14/06, Statement of Barbara Stanley) (“Renfroe stipulates that the giving of information and documents to a governmental investigator conducting any kind of investigation is not a violation of their contract”); (See Gene Renfroe Letter, Exhibit).
These undisputed facts are reinforced throughout their brief numerous times.
The core of Renfroe’s argument – – that the Rigsbys breached the nondisclosure agreement by disclosing documents to a policyholder’s lawyer – – is eviscerated by the undisputed fact that State Farm has no policy that prohibits an adjustor from going to a policyholder’s lawyer with information that the policyholder’s claim has been mishandled or handled fraudulently. (See Defendants’ Supplement, filed on December 3, 2007). Therefore, the Rigsbys’ giving of documents to Richard Scruggs, who represented hundreds of policyholders whose claims were mishandled by State Farm, did not violate any State Farm policy. Renfroe’s contract cannot confer greater protection to State Farm’s documents than does State Farm itself. The Rigsbys’ disclosures to Scruggs, therefore, did not breach the Renfroe contract.
Also, in this brief, the Rigsbys’ counsel show how the Rigsbys were not in cahoots with Scruggs nor did their documents benefit themselves or Scruggs.
There is no dispute that the Rigsbys did not know Scruggs when they discovered the conflicting McIntosh engineering reports and that their mother initiated contact with him. The Rigsbys agreed to meet with Scruggs because they wanted advice and guidance. It is undisputed that soon after meeting the Rigsbys Scruggs arranged for them to cooperate with federal and state authorities, and then in April 2006 the Rigsbys made disclosures to the Department of Justice detailing fraud on the government and filed the qui tam complaint.
The one, and only, litigation that Renfroe cites to support its contention that State Farm documents have been used for non-qui tam litigation is the McIntosh case. That litigation was filed on October 23, 2006, eight months after the Rigsbys gave Scruggs the conflicting McIntosh reports, which also were the basis of the qui tam complaint filed six months earlier. Renfroe’s failure to identify any lawsuit that relies on documents that the Rigsbys gave to Scruggs other than the McIntosh reports demonstrates the emptiness of Renfroe’s assertions that the Rigsbys’ motive was to benefit Scruggs and that Scruggs recruited “thousands” of clients as a result of the Rigsbys’ disclosures.
Also, they cite Renfroe’s argument that the Rigsbys were doing this to benefit themselves.
There is likewise no basis for Renfroe’s claim that the Rigsbys’ disclosed documents to benefit themselves. It is undisputed that there is no agreement or expectation that the Rigsbys will receive proceeds from any policyholder lawsuit. It is further undisputed that Scruggs did not pay the Rigsbys for any documents and that their consulting arrangement with the Scruggs Katrina Group (SKG) came about only after they stopped working on State Farm claims. The employment was not in exchange for their earlier disclosure of documents.
Link to the Rigsby brief in Nowdy’s post “curiouser and curiouser”