Day: September 1, 2009

Evideniary disclosure is Michael Oher of Rigsby qui tam

Evidentiary disclosure is Michael Oher protecting the Rigsby qui tam.

Nonetheless,  State Farm, Forensics, and Haag each recently took a shot – a strategic play intended to force Judge Senter to reveal his game plan.

On its face, Judge Senter’s focus on the McIntosh claim seems too narrow.  In the context of evidentiary disclosure in qui tam litigation, however, it takes on a different look  – one that makes evidence such as the McIntosh claim secondary to the scheme of the fraud.  A Fifth Circuit decision explains:

We hold that to plead with particularity the circumstances constituting fraud for a False Claims Act § 3729(a)(1) claim, a relator’s complaint, if it cannot allege the details of an actually submitted false claim, may nevertheless survive by alleging particular details of a scheme to submit false claims paired with reliable indicia that lead to a strong inference that claims were actually submitted.

The “reliable indicia” include those contained in the Complaint as well as the those in the Disclosure Statement. Continue reading “Evideniary disclosure is Michael Oher of Rigsby qui tam”

Weatherly v State Farm: The Farm tried to quash the Beno recordings

But alas those damming transcripts I posted late yesterday and today were ruled relevant by Judge Fallon. Personally I hope, should Congress hold hearings in conjunction with the reauthorization of the NFIP, that Ms Beno be called to DC to further illuminate and expand on what she told the Weatherly’s PI. I don’t know how much but I strongly suspect this case settled out for many times over the Weatherly’s policy limits to keep the certain to be bad jury verdict out of the media. So while we don’t have a verdict on the record we do have the phone transcripts and tapes which should never be confused with an illegal wiretap. Continue reading “Weatherly v State Farm: The Farm tried to quash the Beno recordings”

A quick note Ocean Oil v O’Dwyer

We are watching Judge Lemelle’s actions in Ocean Oil v O’Dwyer and though we don’t condone Ashton’s choice of words or many of his methods, the man deserves justice like anyone else and he is not getting it from Judge Lemelle. Is it proper for the Judge that disbarred Ashton to be hearing any other cases involving him given their history of personal animus? The only reason we have not posted in depth on this is time constraints.

Judge Lemelle should have taken his cue from Judge Biggers IMHO.

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A view from the inside of State Farm’s call center Part Deux: “you just always had the feeling that something wasn

The people on the post Katrina coast had the same feeling though it was not confined to State Farm as we continue with the transcript of the Weatherly family’s PI’s talk with former State Farm call center employee / insurance adjuster Lorrie Beno:

A. You know, and I ran it on my house here just to see, because I just built a house and I thought that thing is coming in really high, I don’t have enough insurance on my house and it was pricing it a lot more to rebuild it, but they were – I don’t know. They wanted to pay them off on those policies. They said things to us like we got to get money into these people’s hands, it’s going to take a while to get to these wind policies, we’ve got to get some money in their hands, and that’s what they did, they paid them off on the flood, and we all kind of rolled our eyes, because we were going yeah, you want to get money into their hands that belongs to someone else, you know, as long as someone else is paying the bill, it’s good.I don’t know, you know, there were a lot of people at State Farm that were really good, honest, people, but you just always had the feeling that something wasn’t right there. I don’t trust the carriers anyways, I never have.

The public has definitely caught on to the not trusting insurer thang after their outrageous behavior here after the storm. With the first interview concluded and the PI finding Ms Beno quite the honest, open and chatty type, after consultation with the Weatherly’s legal team, a second phone call was in order and it is there we pick back up: Continue reading “A view from the inside of State Farm’s call center Part Deux: “you just always had the feeling that something wasn”