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!”