Category: Claims Dumping

(almost) Breaking News – Trial date set for Rigsby Qui Tam

My computer broke before I could post the breaking news (hence the “almost”).  $%#&  Now, I’m broke; $%#&  However, Sop (and everyone else who saw the Katrina survivor I typed on until today) will tell you that I’ve needed a new computer at least as long as he’s known me.

I’ve got one now…it looks a lot like the trip to the beach I was planning because I didn’t  just buy one, I bought two and an external hard drive that backs up what I put on them (and will  hold more than I’ll have to save before placing  my order with Walmart) – but enough of that and on to the (almost) breaking news.

Rigsby qui tam is going to trial. December 1 is the date…2010 is the year – according to the scheduling order locked in my old computer.

It’s been a long day.  I started shopping after lunch but didn’t have everything working until an hour or so before midnight.  So, tomorrow Scarlett (or maybe the next day) I’ll come up with the scheduling order and update this post.  Meanwhile, let us all ponder WTF is the reason there will be no trial on the Rigsby qui tam claim until the sixth year following Hurricane Katrina.

Catching up on Katrina litigation

With a lot of catching up to squeeze in a single post, I’ll jump right in and start with Bossier v State Farm as the trial starts in just a few days.  Judge Senter tied up all the loose ends with two orders issued last Friday.  First up is his Order granting in part Bossier’s only motion in limine.

Plaintiff’s Motion in Limine addresses three subjects: the admissibility of evidence surrounding Plaintiff’s receipt of a Mississippi Development Authority (MDA) grant and a loan from the Small Business Administration (SBA) arising from the Hurricane Katrina loss which is the subject of this cause of action; the interjection of personal comments by counsel for the Defendant during voir dire; and a letter from one of Defendant’s employees unconditionally tendering a check to Plaintiff for the payment of dwelling extension coverage under the insurance policy at issue here. Continue reading “Catching up on Katrina litigation”

The Press Register Picks up Coverage of Ex Rel Branch: Slabbed gets a link

Kudos and props to Nowdy as all that time and hard work she put in reorganizing our legal pages has been recognized in the media.  Jeff Amy has the story for the Mobile Press Register:

Pilot Catastrophe Services Inc. has been dismissed from a federal lawsuit in New Orleans that claims insurers overbilled the National Flood Insurance Program for flood damage so they could pay policyholders less for wind damage from 2005’s Hurricane Katrina.

The Monday ruling allowed the whistleblower suit by Branch Consultants, a group of former insurance adjusters, to go forward after two years of wrangling. But it severed Pilot and two other adjusting firms — NCA Group and Crawford & Co. — from the case.

State Farm Fire and Casualty Co. and Allstate Corp. were removed earlier. Left as defendants are Travelers unit Standard Fire Insurance Co., Liberty Mutual Fire Insurance Co., American National Property & Casualty Co., Fidelity National Property and Casualty Insurance Co., American Reliable Insurance Co., Colonial Claims Corp. and Simsol Insurance Services Inc.

Insurers say there’s no merit to claims that they pumped up flood damage and reduced estimates for wind damage to increase their profits. A similar suit is pending in Mississippi.

sop

Federal District Court Judge offers tutorial Part Deux: Judge Sarah Vance Educates Insurers about Federal Court Jurisdiction in False Claims Act Cases – A Branch Qui Tam Update

The long and short of Judge Vance’s latest order in the Branch Qui Tam case is LETS GET IT ON BECAUSE THIS BABY IS HEADED TO TRIAL. In a 69 page order and reasons Judge Vance lays out a well reasoned legal opinion with only one hiccup for the plaintiffs which we find on page 54:

Pilot Catastrophe Services, Crawford & Company, and NCA Group must be dismissed without prejudice

But even there the news isn’t so bad for the good guys as Judge Vance continues:

the Court grants Branch the opportunity to amend its complaint to allege an adequate factual basis for its allegations.

Rebecca Mowbray at the Times Picayune picks up the coverage:

The whistleblower suit alleging that insurance companies overbilled the National Flood Insurance Program for flood damage so they could get away with paying policyholders less money for wind damage from Hurricane Katrina is about to begin subpoenaing claim files to get to the heart of the case.

Thanks to a 69-page ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Sarah Vance Monday that severed several adjusting firms from the proceedings, the procedural phase of the case is over after two years of motions and appeals.

“We’re now in a position where we can start discovery,” said Allan Kanner, attorney for the Branch Consultants, a group of former insurance adjusters who discovered unusual patterns of how insurers allocated the bills for hurricane damage, and filed suit. “While it doesn’t eclipse the Saints’ victory, it’s one of the best things that’s happened to us in a long time.” Continue reading “Federal District Court Judge offers tutorial Part Deux: Judge Sarah Vance Educates Insurers about Federal Court Jurisdiction in False Claims Act Cases – A Branch Qui Tam Update”

Ahoy WYO Fiduciary, Icy Waters of NFIP Lie Ahead!

Katrina through the eyes of State Farm: a now familiar story that begins in Bloomington, in a boardroom, awaiting an angry sea. August 29, a third of Mississippi is nuked. In comes a headline-starved lawyer, well healed and ready to “save the people.” State Farm repairs to Birmingham, a Roveside rat’s nest. Alas, the 4 year odyssey begins.

In the meander of this cyclonic tragedy, countless homes, lives, reputations and chattel are ravaged like the spoils of war. A senior federal judge, bent on political revenge, soils the bench he occupies. Two “factory” girls of the Cat adjusting world, forthright and honest-to-a-fault, are savaged by a $56 billion racketeering monopoly and its Hessian body broker. Associated hard-driving plaintiff lawyers, indispensible lifelines to thousands of victims, are systematically slandered by thug corporate lawyers, and then, through no fault of their own, thoughtlessly disqualified by a rudderless federal court. Behind the scenes, lifer law clerks – insidious martinets of the inner sanctum – work the ex parte back channels for ways to advance their impish political agendas. A 30 year pimp politician is stripped bare and lampooned, a righteous comeuppance for the thousands of lives he’s ruined. A neophyte lawyer-journalist who wouldn’t know a hurricane loss if it bit his private parts off, shills and cons his way into the affray, and trafficking on scandal, emerges as a self-ordained insurance expert.

Four (4) years of rampant fraud, $13 million a day in falsely settled claims, without so much as a single uptick on the legal side. Think of the money spent, the millions wasted, the dreadnought trial schedules, as if the whole thing were an interminable English parlor game. Motions, replies, briefs, extensions, sanctimonious trials, an endless procession of mindless bureaucracy, saddling already helpless people with cost in the hundreds of thousands, all just to get a contract debt paid. Unable to deliver even basic service, the court outsources, dumping bereft insureds in the laps of purchased mediator-lawyers, eager to stay in good with their fee paying, corporate check writers. Judged for fidelity of service and “get-er-done” efficiency, the legal system is an antideluvian disaster, a deus ex machina, lacking rope and hoist. Continue reading “Ahoy WYO Fiduciary, Icy Waters of NFIP Lie Ahead!”

Dear Mr President We Still Have Insurance Problems: Gene Taylor Writes a Letter to the Prez


Congressman Gene Taylor
U.S. House of Representatives
Fourth District of Mississippi

————————————

2269 Rayburn HOB
Washington, DC 20515
(202) 225-5772
Fax (202) 225-7074

For Immediate Release
Contact: Ana Maria Rosato (202) 253-1308
October 13, 2009

Rep. Gene Taylor (D-Miss.) Urges President Obama to Reform National Flood Insurance Program, Act on Multiple Peril Insurance legislation 

Bay St. Louis, Miss. — With the President’s upcoming visit to New Orleans on October 15, 2009, Rep. Gene Taylor (D-Miss.) wrote Mr. Obama urging the Administration to reform the National Flood Insurance Program and revisit the Multiple Peril Insurance Act of 2009, his proposed solution to the homeowner insurance crisis that is sweeping America’s homeowners throughout the Gulf and Atlantic coastal states. Rep. Taylor urged the Administration to engage in “more actively in reforming the National Flood Insurance Program, providing for better disaster insurance coverage, and improving other disaster response and recovery programs.”

Rep. Taylor’s letter opened by reminding President Obama that since Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Mississippi Gulf Coast on August 29, 2005, he has not yet visited the area either as a Senator, a candidate for President, or as President. In the letter, the Mississippi Congressman stated:

“Immediately after [Hurricane] Katrina, we learned that some of the largest insurance companies in America were not going to honor their [homeowner] policies.” Continue reading “Dear Mr President We Still Have Insurance Problems: Gene Taylor Writes a Letter to the Prez”

Some friends are in the news today

Long Beach resident Kevin Buckel and United Policyholders executive director Amy Bach to be specific. Kevin’s website details his thus far fruitless pursuit of a statutory Policyholder Bill of Rights for Mississippians. It has been blocked in committee in the Senate by Sen. Eugene “Buck” Clarke, a GOP free market true believer over at the Big Rock Candy Mountain in Jackson.

We’ve also chronicaled Mr Buckel’s efforts at fostering transparency at the Mississippi Department of Insurance as he has taken our current Commish to court after the claims files used in the sham Market Conduct Study began under Mr Chaney’s predecessor turned insurance lobbyist George Dale as overseen by former Deputy Commish Lee Harrell who now works for State Farm law firm Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell and Berkowitz. Mr Chaney has thus far successfully stonewalled those efforts. Anita Lee picks up more recent events here:

A Coast policyholder is appealing to the state Supreme Court for access to Mississippi Insurance Department records that would show the dollar amount of Katrina claims denied by insurance companies.

Long Beach policyholder Kevin Buckel filed a written request in January 2009 for records showing the total amount of damages homeowners claimed, the total amount paid and the total amount denied by private property insurance companies. MID maintains the agency does not have the records.

United Policyholders of America is helping Buckel fund the appeal. Continue reading “Some friends are in the news today”

Dean Starkman – SunHerald

Dean Starkman’s very fine writing about the insurance industry’s response to Hurricane Katrina, Insurance Transparency Project blog, continues to be an invaluable resource for SLABBED.  In fact, it was my search for something he’d written that led me to the Columbia Journalism Review where I found (much to my delight)  SunHerald’s Lee, Times-Pic’s Mowbray: Still on it

One of the true pleasures of reporting on the insurance industry’s response, or non-response, to Hurricane Katrina was meeting, and reading the reporting of, the principal Gulf-area papers’ reporters on the insurance angle, Rebecca Mowbray of the Times-Picayune and Anita Lee of the SunHerald of Gulfport and Biloxi, Miss.

It is heartwarming to see them still on the case, four years later. It is heartbreaking to read what they are reporting.

Mowbray: “Report dubs FEMA poor watchdog”

That one, from September 22, is about how the government fails to supervise the private insurers who administer the federal flood program under a “private-public partnership” (always a good idea to check your wallet when you read those words):

FireShot capture #104 - 'SunHerald's Lee, Times-Pic's Mowbray_ Still on it _ CJR' - www_cjr_org_the_audit_sunheralds_lee_timespics_mowbr_php

That’s for expenses, people. Insurers under this program bear no risk. What financial product comes with a 66% load? Continue reading “Dean Starkman – SunHerald”

Reaction to Corban Ripple Across the Media

Anita Lee’s story on Corban is here with commentary from head III shill Robert Hartwig himself (picture found here). The bottom line per Judy Guice:

“To me, this was always much more than just a business issue. This was a personal issue to me. Getting the law straight was really one of the critical parts of my recovery and I’m relieved that has now happened.

“The overwhelming feeling I have right now is relief that our children and grandchildren, and everybody else who had to suffer like we’ve all suffered since Hurricane Katrina, will not be stuck with the harsh law, the incorrect law that was previously created and has now been corrected by our Mississippi Supreme Court.”

Chip Merlin has written a series of 3 posts on Corban which address all the fine points of the decision. This is from Part 2:

This ruling confirms State Farm’s Wind/Water Protocol is the wrong test under Mississippi law because it improperly shifted the burden upon the policyholder to prove that the wind caused the damage rather than the insurer having to prove that the damage was excluded. Corban undermines the Fifth Circuit reversal of Judge Senter in Broussard vs. State Farm and as I suggested in Broussard’s Bad Faith Decision Impaired by the Mississippi Supreme Court.

There is one important mistake the Court did make in its decision when it held: Continue reading “Reaction to Corban Ripple Across the Media”