Tag: Judge Sul Ozerden

Judge Starrett on State Farm Fire and State Farm Mutual – a distinction without a difference

Amazing, is it not, that Judge Walker could find no reason to lawfully deny Burger’s motion to file an amended complaint; yet, Judge Ozerden had no problem finding a reason to deny O’Keefe’s:

State Farm Fire maintains that there is a suggestion of bad faith in Plaintiffs’ attempt to add State Farm Mutual, and that allowing Plaintiffs to amend their Complaint to add this Defendant would result in undue delay and would be futile…The Fifth Circuit has interpreted “futility” in the amended pleading context to mean that an amended complaint fails to state a claim upon which relief can be granted…

Clearly Judge Ozerden sees a distinction between State Farm Fire and State Farm Mutual. However, his collegue Judge Starrett has declared it a distinction without a difference:

General Hood made some effort to distinguish State Farm Mutual Automobile Company, a mutual insurance company, from State Farm Fire and Casualty Company, a stock insurance company.  The Court believes this to be a distinction without a difference, since all of the stock in the stock company is in fact owned by the mutual company.

Judge Starrett’s opinion on the relationship between State Farm Mutual and State Farm Fire is found in his Order of recusal, entered in State Farm v  Hood (October 10, 2007).

Hood’s position is understandable with a look at the settlement agreement at issue in the injunction State Farm obtained in Starrett’s court prior to his recusal.

agreement 2

Note the Settlement Agreement is specific to Hood’s case against defendant  State Farm Fire! Continue reading “Judge Starrett on State Farm Fire and State Farm Mutual – a distinction without a difference”

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””