Louisiana Citizens Property Insurance Company has settled a state class action case, Press v. Louisiana Citizens Fair Plan Property Insurance Corp., for failing to fully pay overhead and profit to insureds. The proposed settlement, for $23 million, covers claims from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
Continue Reading...The Galveston Island and Bolivar Peninsula slab cases are settling. There was an agreement between the Texas attorneys that nothing would come out in the press until the clients signed the agreements. Since even the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association (TWIA) participated with a press release, I assume that the gentlemen's confidentiality agreement to wait on telling everybody publicly that a settlement has been reached, even before clients have signed the releases, no longer applies. The vast majority of my clients have only received letters from our firm, and I am awaiting final figures from TWIA so that we can consummate the deal. I hope everybody is not optimistically jumping the gun.
Continue Reading...The oil spill attorneys advertising for a mass of clients and recent advertisements in Texas regarding Hurricane Ike claims, seem to indicate that all my colleagues always win, and win big. Nothing could be further from the truth. The truth is that if you are going to trial or push for what should fully be paid, at least one party to the litigation will lose and, sometimes, lose after a lot of money is offered to settle. Everybody loves to talk about their wins. Losses happen, and I am reminded of that bitterness and horrible feeling of injustice every now and then.
Continue Reading...September 1970 was a time of big personal change for me. We were living outside Washington, D.C. and my father had just received orders to the National Data Buoy Project at NASA’s Mississippi Test Facility, now known as the Stennis Space Center. My mother, who grew up in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was in tears wondering how her children were ever going to get an education in Hancock County, Mississippi. Three years later, she was crying as we left for Southern California. Rather than follow my father right away, we stayed an extra year, using an excuse that my father would be gone for nine months on a Coast Guard icebreaker. The best education and lessons I have ever had were from brothers of the Sacred Heart at Saint Stanislaus during seventh and eighth grades. Drew Brees had it right when he spoke of how much the New Orleans Saints football team means to New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast Region.
Continue Reading...I have been asked to participate in a roundtable discussion regarding alternative dispute resolution processes by Sean Shaw, the Florida Consumer Advocate.
Continue Reading...When somebody starts talking with you over dinner about which part of the brain makes you worry that something bad may happen to you and talks with sentences that seem to have "cognition" interspersed frequently with "cortex," you know to skip cocktails. The person speaking with me was Alaska attorney, Don Bauermeister. He is a person of study and reflective brilliance. We discussed how the techniques of insurance claim settlement and trial presentation can be studied and implemented for the purpose of helping our policyholder clients.
Continue Reading...Following yesterday’s post, What is a Bad Faith Claim? Or, When Does an Insurance Claim Wrongfully Handled Become a Bad Faith Claim?, there were a couple of posts suggesting that class action lawsuits were the answer to wrongful claims practices. Frankly, most policyholders are more successful financially with individual cases than through class action cases in insurance matters. Many class settlements are nothing other than the insurer buying its way out of a bigger mess and paying off attorneys looking for a big payday. Our firm is very selective about class matters because of the “good for the attorney’s pocket versus bad for the client’s pocket” conflict.
Continue Reading...I just finished a two day settlement conference of a commercial insurance claim dispute held on the 51st floor of Fulbright & Jaworski in Houston. The view from the conference room was beautiful and in juxtaposition to the manner my client felt the insurance claim was handled. As is becoming customary for many of my cases, the terms of the settlement are confidential. The resolution ended very amicably, although the process was somewhat frustrating. The significant aspect to others is this was a matter whose facts are similar to, and seem repeated in, thousands of other Texas losses, no matter if the loss is small or a complex middle eight figure claim. Insurance claim denials and delays seem commonplace in Texas.
Continue Reading...(Note: This Guest Blog is by Deborah Trotter, an attorney with Merlin Law Group in the Gulfport, Mississippi office).
As homeowners, business owners, adjusters, and government and relief agencies begin to sort through the devastation left in the wake of the dangerous storms and tornadoes that tore through the southeast last week, the stark and solemn reality of the loss of life and property is overwhelming. So many families and communities are grieving tremendous losses.
Continue Reading...*(Note: This Guest Blog is by Craig Kubiak, an attorney in the Tampa office of Merlin Law Group)
I recently settled an insurance claim for a client here in Florida. Throughout the pendency of the claim, the insurance company’s experts emphatically denied what I believed to be the cause of the damage to my client’s house. I conducted depositions throughout the state of Florida and elsewhere. Lo and behold, after leaving no stone unturned, I found out some very interesting things about the experts used by the opposing party and how the carrier treated my client and handled the claim in this particular matter. Prior settlement negotiations that were left for dead were suddenly resurrected like a phoenix rising up from the ashes. Soon thereafter, the claim resolved confidentially. Suffice it to say, that under the terms and conditions of the agreement, I am only permitted to state that the parties have resolved their differences amicably and that the litigation has now ended.
Who do you imagine requested that this claim be settled confidentially?
Making an offer to the other party in a lawsuit to settle a case confidentially is equally available to both parties. Once agreed to, strict adherence is an absolute requirement. Upon reflection, I cannot think of a single instance in mine, or anybody else’s career, when the party who filed the lawsuit ever requested confidentiality. The offended party in a lawsuit wants the world to know how they have been treated by the offending party. They often think to themselves, “If this happened to me, it can happen to you too.” The offended party is often mad, confused, and even a little scared all at the same time. There have been times at the conclusion of one of my client’s claims, after all the paperwork has been signed and the checks disbursed, when they have said to me, “I still don’t understand why they treated me the way that they did.”
So when do you agree to keeping something confidential? Not every case filed by Merlin Law Group, or any other law firm for that matter, settles confidentially. In fact, most don’t. The facts and circumstances of each claim dictate when and if your claim may be a candidate for such a resolution. Most claims don’t start out with confidential settlements on anybody’s mind. But being extremely thorough and diligent during the discovery phase of a claim can sometimes uncover dirty little secrets that the insurance company doesn’t want the rest of the world to know. Recognizing that the other party does not want certain information to get out to the general public has value. How much value is determined by just how dirty their little secret is.
So, have you figured out yet which party involved in the lawsuit I filed asked for a confidential settlement?
The best way to prepare for an insurance settlement is to prepare the case for trial. Trying to predict what would probably happen at trial is a great way to gauge the value of an insurance dispute.
I am writing this while flying to New Orleans for a mediation tomorrow morning. This blog post may be removed if the matter settles--so read quickly.
Continue Reading...Nowdoucit from Slabbed wrote a comment to my post, Surplus Lines Insurers, Sinkholes, and the Law of Mars, concerning the selection of lawyers:
Continue Reading..."The more cases I read, the more convinced I become of the importance of retaining an attorney experienced in insurance claims litigation - better yet, experienced and successful.
The case you cited, Chip, is a different but compelling example of the difference that can make."
There is nothing like combining business with pleasure. I suppose if your business is fun, you are always having a party at work. Today, I am meeting with my bad faith insurance attorney colleagues. Tonight, I will celebrate the Port of New Orleans litigation with my client, co-counsel and legal staff.
Continue Reading...After posting two Blogs (Effective Endgame Communications; Influence and Persuasion) regarding the topic of settlements, I was amused by SLABBED referring to settlements as "kissing one's sister." While that was on my mind, I was provided our Leeds Appellate Answer Brief to a trial that I won with Jean Niven in 2007. While I can understand that civil lawsuits play a very important role by uncovering socially significant information, the bottom line, as examplified in the Leeds case, is that most civil insurance lawsuits involve disputes between private parties where money is the heart of the issue.
In the late 1980's, Tony Cunningham, a very prominant trial attorney, gave me some good advice that applies today. He told me that we are always salesmen for our clients, and our zealous advocacy in the courtroom comes only after we have failed to sell our client's cause to our opponent before trial. I teach this to our attorneys because a relatively large and quicker monetary recovery is usually what is most important to our clients. Since we typically work on on a contingency fee basis, it is important to us as well.
The press reported the Leeds trial win. The Leeds' neighbors were ecstatic because our theory of loss was that the Leeds' home was on the ridge of an ancient relic sinkhole which caused the entire community to have homes damaged by earth movement covered under their policies. As a result of that trial, the neighbors also have hope for a recovery. We have more clients as a result of the publicity. But instead of acknowledging the loss and paying the Leeds' claim, Citizens Property Insurance has fought us every step of the way, seeking to overturn the jury verdict. It has now been 18 months since the trial, and we have put no money in the Leeds' hands. While we have publicly won so far and have not "kissed our sister" through a settlement, I am certain that our clients wished we could have obtained their recovery, which will be very large compared to the initial claim, through a much quicker private resolution rather than the public loss we are putting Citizens through.
As indicated in my previous blog, everybody can benefit from understanding some basics of intellectual influence. While my speech was given to trial attorneys who typically represent people against insurance companies, anybody can use them, and should, if they want better results with dealing with people who have different views. Some may question why I would publish the "secret" to getting great resolutions from insurance companies. Frankly, if everybody practiced these principles, the world would be a lot more progressive.
Continue Reading...Most cases resolve before a trial. While thorough preparation for trial is paramount, most of our policyholder clients want a resolution as quickly as possible and for a much as possible. Settling a case for less than its value is an easy way to get a quick resolution. Settling a case for more than its value in a short period of time is a lot more difficult, and, that is what some of our clients expect us to magically accomplish.
Continue Reading...A Broward County Court has approved a class action settlement on behalf of more than 12,000 State Farm Insurance policyholders in Florida who will receive 100 percent of the damages they requested in a $6.8 million settlement of claims filed last year in which they alleged the insurer refused to pay replacement costs of screen enclosures damaged by Hurricanes Katrina and Wilma, attorneys for the plaintiffs announced. Read more....
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