Tag: Keri Rigsby

Allstate files Answer in Branch – and this I couldn’t make up!

My calendar was marked with the due date for Allstate’s Answer to the Branch SAC (Second Amended Complaint); and, given the Allstate Motion for Extension of Time…and…Page Limits, I expected the “good hands” to mix things up:

In its notice of nonintervention filed in Denenea, the Government stated that ‘with the addition of Allstate as a defendant in Branch Consultants, the question of whether the jurisdictional bar under 31 U.S.C. § 3730(b)(5) is triggered as to either the relator in Denenea or the relator in Branch Consultants arises’…Allstate seeks a ten day extension of the deadline for it to respond to the SAC so that Allstate may address the impact of the Denenea action on the viability of the SAC’s claims against Allstate…

Allstate also respectfully moves for an extension of the page limit…In addition to the issues raised by the Denenea action, Allstate’s motion will address the first-to-file, res judicata, and law of the case issues raised by the Rigsby complaint and this Court’s and the Fifth Circuit’s prior rulings dismissing Allstate under the first-to-file rule.”

Allstate, however, did more than just mix things up.  The Company’s Answer to the Branch complaint reads as if Abbott and Constello were heading Allstate’s legal team and offering who-filed-first as a defense! Continue reading “Allstate files Answer in Branch – and this I couldn’t make up!”

Rigsbys file "Assertion of Privilege" to stop State Farm's "sideshow" (Rigsby qui tam update, Part 2)

Although I’d planned to post about State Farm’s Mickey Mouse expert witnesses today, I first need to report the Rigsbys’ attempt to put a stop to the Company’s “sideshow” with their filing of a Notice of Assertion of Privilege.

Before I do that, however, I need to link Anita Lee’s story, State Farm pursues Scruggs, records in whistle-blower case, from yesterday’s Sun Herald for background.

State Farm has subpoenaed former attorney and current federal prisoner Dickie Scruggs, along with a host of documents he may possess, for pretrial testimony in a whistle-blower lawsuit filed against the insurer over Katrina-claims handling.
State Farm’s subpoena of Scruggs requests information involving the same cast of characters tied to a North Mississippi judicial bribery scheme that netted Scruggs seven years in prison. State Farm seeks to take his pretrial testimony Tuesday at the Federal Correctional Institute in Ashland, Ky., where he is serving a seven-year sentence.
Although Lee points out, “A flurry of motions are being filed as a July 1 deadline approaches for each side to finish requests for pretrial fact-gathering, called discovery”. the word “blizzard” might be more apt.   With documents flying around like crazy, the Rigsby sisters wisely put everyone on notice: Continue reading “Rigsbys file "Assertion of Privilege" to stop State Farm's "sideshow" (Rigsby qui tam update, Part 2)”