Yesterday it was the 5th Circuit that bitch slapped Randy and the Lafayette legal team as the folks at United Fire Group aka United Fire and Casualty Company aka Lafayette Insurance sink to new lows trying to hose Aunt Sally’s Praline Shop in a case that once again reveals how insurers misuse and abuse the court system, making it an adjunct of their bad faith claims handling processes:
More than 18 months of discovery and other pre-trial proceedings followed United Fire’s initial answer. A few weeks before the scheduled trial date in June 2008, United Fire declared its intention to raise specific policy exclusions at trial. At the pretrial conference, United Fire enumerated each of the policy exclusions it intended to assert. Aunt Sally’s filed a motion in limine seeking to prohibit United Fire from belatedly asserting those defenses, citing the prejudice it would suffer in attempting to refute United Fire’s arguments without the benefit of discovery. The district court agreed and granted Aunt Sally’s motion. Although the trial date was then continued at United Fire’s request for several months, the district court agreed to the continuance on the basis of keeping the case in its then current posture. That is, no further amendments to the pleadings, no additional discovery and no further deadline extensions. Although United Fire later asked for another continuance, trial was scheduled for, and commenced on, September 29, 2008. At the conclusion of trial, the jury found in favor of Aunt Sally’s on all claims, and returned a verdict of $364,671.00 in damages and $114,234.00 in penalties. That award was based on the jury’s specific finding, as required under Louisiana law, that United Fire’s failure to pay Aunt Sally’s claims was arbitrary, capricious or without probable cause.
I bet after Randy hosed Aunt Sally he stole a sucker from a baby. Now Randy and the gang need to pay up. My mind is open to the possibility United Fire continues to issue misleading financial statements that are not properly reserved for their contractual liabilities related to Katrina.
As they say in this part of the country, Randy va te faire foutre, vas te faire encule beaucoup.
sop
These guys are just thugs in suits. There is an oft-cited La. case that stands for the proposition that changing the reason for denial after the claim has been denied (as in trying to amend your Answer to rely on new policy provisions for denial) is, in and of itself, indicia of bad faith. The question with UF/Lafayette is: if your entire claims process is predicated on unfair trade practices in violation of the states’ respective insurance codes, wouldn’t every single claim you adjust be performed in bad faith. This is what’s called “institutional bad faith.” Doesn’t UF/Lafayette have some provision in its claims manual that says something to the effect of “the value of each claim depends on who the plaintiff’s lawyer is”?
Ironic that the firm representing Aunt Sally’s mostly represents insurance companies and has engaged in conduct in another case that resulted in substantial sanctions against one of its insurance clients. And I won’t even go into that firm’s issues with regard to its representation of Jefferson Parish.
Yum! I do love an Aunt Sally’s Praeline! Must have eaten cases when I was in college and still grab one every time I can find them for sale.
Lafayette did the same thing to me and my client. The problem is that the delay game has been awarded to certain extent in my case.
Who was defense counsel in the Aunt Sally’s case?
They do Sock and we try our case against them we have a blow up the size of the court that says basically “how are you not arbitrary and capricious if you tie payment of claims to the quality of lawyering?”
Shouldn’t paymanet of claims be linked to the merit of the claim? The questions go on and on and on.
Lafayette is the worst of the worst.
What’s funny is that I filed or made similar arguments in other cases basically stating that the insurer should be limited to the denial letter and the reasons put forth therein. I even showed a moronic EDLA judge the deposition transcript of the adjuster where he testified that the denial letter would never be issued unless the investigation was complete and all steps had been taken to ensure the reasons stated in the denial letter were supported by objective evidence/facts. The point being that the insurer did not rely upon any of the bs they drummed up in litigation to deny the claim, did not assert the defense in its ANswer, but now wants to go before the jury with the non-sense.
Of course, the activist judge refused my request.
Good for Aunt Sallys! I still wonder it was a homeowner and not a business, whether the ruling would have been the same.
By the way, I saw the jury verdict form in a commercial property case tried last week against Lafayette in fromt of Judge Cade.
The jury tagged Lafayette for almost $400,000.00 and I believe $100,000 or so in penalties. The award on penalties would have or could have been larger but the defense firm turned plaintiff’s firm did not put a “Neal Auction House” type of blank for the jury to complete.
Judge Cade of Civil District for the Parish of Orleans. The case was tried 2 weeks ago and I was filing something when Lafayette and the plaintffs filed briefs concerning the total value of the judgment.
There is another big United Fire case looming in Jefferson Parish where they are going to get their asses handed to them as well for even bigger dollars. The bad faith from that Katrina case because of United Fire’s behavior should hit the upper seven digit mark even before you get to the damages. This company shouldn’t be operating in Louisiana.
Is Magnun the lawyer who is going to get this great verdict against Lafayette?
Sorry, I meant “Magnum.”
HHKC
Ahh, real trial lawyers. If it’s the two young lads who have been doing most of that firm’s Katrina litigation, the plaintiff is in good hands. Those two boys would litigate circles around a poser like Magnum. It’s fun turning a post about how bad Lafayette/UF sucks into a jab at the great trial lawyer/businessman, Magnum, J.D. . . . well, at least for some of us.