Month: August 2009

A view from the inside of State Farm’s call center: “I think the companies screw over people regularly.” Lorrie Beno, Welcome to Slabbed

Q. …….Would you be willing to chat with him briefly about this? He just has a much better grip on the issues in this case and I think that it would be more helpful to him to talk directly to you.

A. Wow. I’m kind of torn here. I do this – I’m in this business because I like to see that people get every dime they’re entitled to and that’s what gives me satisfaction in this job. I think the companies screw over people regularly. On the other hand, I have had my neighbor suing me for four years on an easement that’s been in existence since 1920. I have been abused by a whole number of attorneys including the judge who likes to keep his docket padded and that’s why we’re in this situation.

Q. I understand.

A. So right now, I have really had my fill of attorneys and don’t care to help one out. I wouldn’t help one cross a busy street right now.

The litigants on the post katrina coast know exactly where State Farm adjuster Lorrie Beno is coming from with those remarks which were transcribed from the recording of the phone coversations she had with a private investigator hired by the Weatherly family in their fight against State Farm. We seen our fair share of judges (mostly former insurance defense lawyers) who don’t follow the law or abuse elderly policyholders like Magistrate Walker has Mrs Politz in her suit against Nationwide. We’ve seen lawyers with questionable ethics like Scot Spragins and his sidekick Lucky Tucker of Hickman, Goza and Spragins abuse the court system and flaunt court orders earning fees from State Farm. I could go on and on giving many other examples but let’s visit back with Miss Beno as she describes how State Farm adjusted flood claims:

A. I don’t know how it was handled on the wind at all.

Q. Um-hum.

A. The only thing I can tell him, which he probably already knows, is find out that adjustor has been an adjustor.

Q. Right.

A. Because of the laws that are made that people are screaming to see their adjustor immediately, they hire off the street and give them some little short training course and make them an adjustor and get them a temporary license and send them out. Continue reading “A view from the inside of State Farm’s call center: “I think the companies screw over people regularly.” Lorrie Beno, Welcome to Slabbed”

Since we’re talking insurance adjusting today

Jessica at Indexed drew a salient card recently which captures some of the general public perceptions of claims professionals. Warning if you are an insurance adjuster on a bad day or work at Pilot, E. A. Renfroe or Worley please don’t peek below the fold. Continue reading “Since we’re talking insurance adjusting today”

The Lockerbie Bomber and Big Oil

DO GIANT CORPORATIONS REALLY CONTROL SOVEREIGN NATIONS . . . OR IS THAT JUST CONSPIRACY HYPE?

Ever seen pictures of Muslim kids rocking back and forth in a madrasa school? Think vacation bible school on anabolic steroids. Seriously, it’s pretty sad. Little kids, like 5 and 6 spend the whole day kneeling, rocking back and forth while they monotonously recite the Koran for hours on end. Some of these kids are regimented like this for years and years. I have no medical idea what happens to the human psyche when a brain is robotically programmed this way, but it helps me comprehend the phenomena of suicide bombing. Scientists say we’re hard wired for survival and nothing is more repugnant to human nature than self-destruction. So, if that’s true, how does a person’s natural, hard wired instinct to live get overwritten by a phony religious command from Allah to blow oneself to smithereens? Remember the 60’s phrase “brainwashing,” to me it’s no more or less complicated than that.

So what’s the point? Well, it seems one such brainwashed Muslim grew up, made a bomb and in 1988 vaporized 259 people aboard an airplane over Scotland, and murdered 11 more on the ground. But he didn’t do the suicide thing. He hid the bomb in a Samsonite suitcase. Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, head of security for Libyan airlines finally was caught for masterminding the plot. After a preposterously convoluted trial lasting 9 years, he was finally convicted and shut away in a Scottish prison. 

Last week the Muslim got a get-out-of-jail-free card, 19 years early, and went home to Libya. Then came an impassioned international outcry, mainly by the families of people he blew up. Everyone wondered . . . what in the world is Scotland, a seemingly civilized country, thinking? Political officials across the world issued harsh rebukes. Finally responding to international pressure the Scots were forced to speak. Here’s what they told us: the Muslim was released early on compassionate grounds, as “he had terminal prostate cancer.”

A few more days of worldwide anger boiled-up, and then it came out . . . this wasn’t the real reason he was let go . . .it was a private offshore oil deal. Continue reading “The Lockerbie Bomber and Big Oil”

Jeff Amy at the Press Register tells the story of Slabbed’s Pro Se Plaintiff, Maralou Richards: “I wanted to find out if the law is really for the people, and it’s really not”

Here at Slabbed, Nowdy and I have split the workload, with me taking press relations and her doing most of our legal profession outreach. From the time of Nowdy’s first post on Maralou Richards last February I figured this unique case would certainly cross over into the traditional media. Time would prove my instincts rights…..just that none of the reporters I emailed with the details would be the one to bring this story to the realm of the mass media. Rather it was journalist that I was previously unfamiliar, Jeff Amy at the Mobile Press Register, that saw the implications and penned a story that well encapsulates the struggles of ordinary policyholders in a legal system that is completely stacked against them. Jeff’s story appears today in both the Mobile Press Register and it’s sister newspaper the Mississippi Press. On behalf of Nowdy and the Slabbed nation we welcome Jeff to the post Katrina party:

It was just another in the rush of federal suits against Mississippi insurers last August, just before the three-year statute of limitations after Hurricane Katrina expired.

Except it wasn’t. Without a lawyer, then-77-year-old Maralou Richards of Ocean Springs filed a handwritten complaint against a unit of AIG, at the time the world’s largest insurance company.

Richards made a confidential settlement in June with Lexington Insurance Co., the court record shows.

But she’s still unhappy. “I wanted to find out if the law is really for the people, and it’s really not,” she said. Continue reading “Jeff Amy at the Press Register tells the story of Slabbed’s Pro Se Plaintiff, Maralou Richards: “I wanted to find out if the law is really for the people, and it’s really not””

Judge Senter modifies Magistrate’s Order in part – Bossier v State Farm

Plaintiff does not have carte blanche in the discovery process (and Plaintiff’s thoroughness in the pursuit of information may not equate to discoverability), but at the same time Defendant should not unilaterally determine that certain material is restricted.

Judge Senter’s Order granted the Bossier’s motion in part and modified Magistrate Judge Walker’s order in part.  However, what he means by, “The issues in this case appear to be no different from those in other typical Hurricane Katrina lawsuits” is very different from what a good many others would mean by those same words – and that part confounds the total impact of the Order.

For example, when Judge Senter repeats and expands on this position again later, he states:

In light of the Court’s observation that this case is no different from other Hurricane Katrina insurance litigation, the remainder of Plaintiff’s discovery requests are overly broad…

Yet, what he sees as “overly broad,”  others might see as merely scratching the surface :

“meetings [and other events] of any description”; documents (and other items) “of any sort whatsoever” related, inter alia, to handling “Hurricane Katrina claims” and “wind vs. water claims”; and the handling of NFIP claims (when there was no flood insurance in this case)…

Likewise, what he sees as unreasonable, some would say is the only reasonable way to discover why the typical Hurricane Katrina insurance lawsuit includes property near the water with no flood insurance:

…the Magistrate Judge required State Farm “to produce those documents containing [Defendant’s] directives, guidelines, policies and procedures for handling Hurricane Katrina claims in general or Plaintiff’s claim specifically.” Anything beyond, including the formulation of those directives, guidelines, policies, and procedures, is unreasonable.

However, the modification Judge Senter made was to a portion of Walker’s Order that was in dire need of correction: Continue reading “Judge Senter modifies Magistrate’s Order in part – Bossier v State Farm”

Here’s a judge who took an oath of office, and lives up to it. An anonymous guest post.

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Justin Maxon / The New York Times

The judges name is Jed S. Rakoff, and he “sits” in the US District Court of Manhattan.  He’s a man I could address as “Your Honor,” and sincerely mean it.  He isn’t shy about stating that the public must be able to “see” what our court system is doing if they are to have any confidence in it at all.  He’s adopted strict rules limiting what sort of materials may be kept confidential in cases before him.  He calls this “transparency,” but what he’s really saying is this . . . every time a court does something under the table, (like sealing State Farm’s documents without any basis whatsoever), it demeans the justice system and destroys people’s belief in their government. 

We all know how corporate defendants constantly game the system with their pseudo “trade secret” claims.  Good God, think of the horror stories posted on this blog alone.  Sadly, these shameless lies presented in signed court papers governed by Rule 11 honestly standards are rarely subjected to the mandatory test for excluding discoverable information: (1) the movant has the burden of proving everything they withheld is a bona fide trade secret; and (2) a record finding must be made, based on facts and/or testimony, and the controlling law in discovery cases; and (3) all of this must be preserved in a public court record, susceptible to appellate review. 

Contrast Judge Rakoff’s “transparency” with what happened in Birmingham, corporate rat’s nest of the South.  Not only were documents concealed, hell, the entire case against Cori and Keri Rigsby was ginned up to keep evidence of federal flood program fraud a secret, and at the same time persecute and defame the Rigsbys and Dick Scruggs as document thieves.  Imagine that.  What would people like Oliver Wendell Holmes and Benjamin Cardozo do if they were alive to witness an Article III Tribunal, a United States Federal Court involved in this sordid and illegal mess?  Imposing personal jurisdiction over persons not even within the court’s constitutional power . . . for the purpose of concealing a multi billion dollar fraud upon the US Treasury? Continue reading “Here’s a judge who took an oath of office, and lives up to it. An anonymous guest post.”

Biggers gives Wilson’s wheel of fortune another spin – Recusal puts hot potato in rotation

Who was “It” when Wilson v Scruggs became a game of hot potato? US Attorney Jim Greenlee?

It is clear that the Plaintiffs’ have filed this Motion in an attempt to circumvent the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure regarding discovery. As a preliminary matter, Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(d)(l) prohibits a party from seeking discovery “from any source before the parties have conferred as required by Rule 26(f), except … when authorized by [the] rules, by stipulation, or by court order.”

Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(d)(I). The Rule 16.1 (A) Initial Order entered in this matter (Docket Number 53) reflects a Case Management Conference date of September 29, 2009, with an attorney conference of twenty-one (21) days prior. Because that Rule 26(t) Attorney Conference has not yet occurred, Plaintiffs are precluded from seeking discovery from any source at this juncture.

Not Greenlee.  The USA’s Special Appearance and Response to Plaintiffs’ Motion for Preservation and Retention of Documents makes it clear the USA does not want to play.

Maybe the Scruggs Defendants?

The Scruggs Defendants further object to the production of these documents to Continue reading “Biggers gives Wilson’s wheel of fortune another spin – Recusal puts hot potato in rotation”

Ding Dong a Shill is Dead

Few men prostituted themselves before the money altar of big insurance more than Bill Bailey. Since it is not polite to speak ill of the recently departed I’ll leave it at that with a link to Sam Friedman’s blog where insurance shills can find respite from the reality of McKinsey and hosing homeless policyholders for profit.

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