Thursday, September 30, 2010

Where did our premiums go?

Texas Windstorm Insurance Association (TWIA) is in court in Galveston attempting to convince the Judge to order the Plaintiffs attorneys to turn over the total amount of fees they have made in representing people who had their hurricane claims denied or underpaid. The TWIA has already tried to set the stage against the “greedy” plaintiffs lawyer. There has also been talk about the legislature needing to know the amount of fees so they can possibly do something about them. Here's another crazy idea TWIA -- evaluate the claims fairly and pay them timely and guess what there would be NO attorney fees. What a novel idea. An insurance company actually paying a claim. I realize it is a shock to the insurance world that someone would ever suggest that they do anything other than collect premiums, but normal people actually expect to be covered in exchange for all the money they have paid over the years and they get a little upset when after having their $150,00.00 home destroyed that you want to write them a check for well below the value or that you tell them that the fact that their roof blew off is just a coincidence that it happened after a hurricane.
Sorry I drifted off into the world of how normal people think and not the land of insurance where intelligent life is scarce. So instead of just paying the claims and avoiding the lawsuits and attorney fees completely, the insurance companies whine and moan about how much money the attorneys who are representing their insured’s are making. They want to start an investigation into the amount of fees and make it all public. What they really want to do is create a smoke screen where they can hide. They want to use their same old “greedy lawyers” argument and hope that it gets people to forget that they have made millions (if not billions) of dollars off the people of this state in premiums and then refused to pay the claims.
The only time you generally need insurance is when something bad happens. The only time you generally need a lawyer is when someone has done something they shouldn’t have. I see a correlation here. It does not seem to be apparent to the insurance industry. So why should that surprise us? Instead of hearings on attorney fees paid out, how about hearings and an investigation into how to prevent this type of abuse by the insurance companies in the future. Make the failure of an insurance company to pay a valid claim a claim in which not only can the person who paid their premiums get their attorney fees and the real value of the claim, but punitive damages or an automatic 10x the claim value. Maybe that will get the insurance companies to do what is right in the first place.
I do have some questions of my own: How much did the insurance companies make off of Texans in the last 10 years? How much did they make off of interest in the premiums they have kept and money they have not paid out for the hurricane claims? How much do they pay their lobbyists and others who try and convince our representatives to “protect” them (in other words don’t make us actually pay any claims or worst case let us delay them for years and then only pay the very minimum)? Which representatives received money from the insurance companies and how much?

Thursday, September 16, 2010

responsibility

Toyota admits that its black-box recorder readers have a software error that can cause wrong speed readings.

SUV’s have warnings that state avoid sudden turns, but don’t define what that is or how you are to avoid them if someone pulls out in front of you, or if a child runs out in front of your car.

Child safety seats were found to be incorrectly installed 75% of the time by NHTSA in 2009.

What do all these have in common? The manufacturers know of a defect or problem, but rather than fix the problem and save lives they continue to try and blame the driver and parent.

The buzzwords “personal responsibility” is something that manufacturers love to throw out when they are discussing a case. The driver needs to take responsibility. The parent needs to take responsibility.

I have an idea. How about the manufacturers start taking responsibility and fix the problems instead of spending millions of dollars on lobbyist, defense attorneys and advertisements in trying to shift the blame. They have known of the problems for years and yet do nothing about them. Stop blaming your customers and look in a mirror. If any other business was having 75% of their customers not using a product correctly they would probably get the hint that they need to change something. The problem for drivers and parents is that the manufacturers are able to blame them because a jury generally only sees that one case, and not the hundreds or thousands of other claims or lawsuits regarding the same issue filed across the country. The manufacturers can imply this was just a freak accident or this one driver just failed to handle the situation. In those rare instances in which the Courts allow the jury to know about the other incidents the juries usually award significant damages. Does the manufacturer admit they did something wrong and vow to correct the problem and apologize to the family? Do they thank the plaintiffs and jury for helping them become aware of a dangerous defect which is maiming and killing people? No. They generally talk about how the jury was misguided and they how they will appeal this miscarriage of justice. Here’s a solution. Take some responsibility, fix the problem, save the families from having to deal with the sorrow of their children, parents and other family members being injured or killed because you choose to ignore a problem.

Thanks to my partner for the idea for this blog post.

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Facebook, myspace, etc.

I love Facebook and Myspace, but maybe not for the reasons you think. Yes I do have a facebook account and probably spend too much time reading about what is going on and checking out the photos, but the real reason I love them is because they provide great information for cross examination in lawsuits (and unfortunately sometimes against me). There is the old saying that don’t say anything you wouldn’t want written in the paper, now it should be don’t take, or be in a picture you don’t want to be brought up in a trial, job interview or just used to embarrass you. I have seen such things on profile as swinger, escort, weekend drunk, and photos that make for great exhibits in cases. I know you some of you are thinking whew, it is a good thing I have my privacy settings so only my “friends” can see that stuff. Well it might not be so secure. Maybe the picture of you drinking several beers on the weekend are in your friends pages or friends friends and they are not protected. It might it also be that one of your “friends” is not really a friend (or is also friends with the person you are against or interviewing with) and turns your information over. You get asked in a deposition or interview did you drink anything over the weekend, you answer no, but there is a picture of you with a beer in your hand surrounded by empty beer bottles. Again the solution is simple. First don’t put yourself in a bad position and second don’t lie about it.

OK Mr. and Ms. professional, I only put professional stuff on facebook, see above, you never know who took what pictures where you were in maybe without you even knowing about them. There is this thing called tagging, not sure what it is, but my daughters do and it gets you tracked down. Now the others Linkedin, etc. these are professional sites and surely can’t be a problem. Generally that is true as long as you follow the tell the truth. It is useful to find out the background on a person, who they worked for, how long and who they are linked to, but here is another useful piece of information. Say you as a lawyer are trying to determine who to depose at the other parties company in the lawsuit. You send discovery asking for the person with knowledge regarding the topic, they give you a name and/or produce someone OR you get on linkedin and do a search for that company and see who all is listed and what their job titles are. Sometimes they are pretty interesting such as risk assessment and management, operations security, safety training and enforcement. These people may know more and be more interesting to depose than the people they offer.

So the moral of this blog is don’t be stupid as it will show up somewhere sometime on social media and don’t lie about it if asked because you should assume if they (attorney, job interviewer) are asking the question they already know the answer. If your company is sued you should review your own employees social sites, including linkedin to see what they have listed as their jobs and descriptions of job. This may help you determine who may be deposed and help prepare them (and you) for questions. Finally never assume that just because you deleted it that it is gone. It seems like the worse the picture, statement, or information the more somebody wants to keep it around.

Thursday, September 2, 2010

Trial lawyer

I am a trial lawyer. I try cases. Not a hard concept to grasp, but apparently it is beyond the comprehension of some who try to use the term as some type of attack. Case in point. Houston Chronicle article today by Peggy Fikac which discusses the $2,000,000.00 judgment against the Republican Governors Association (RGA)for violating state law relating to donations made to Rick Perry in 2006. The RGA’s spokesperson, Mr. Schrimpf who was quoted in the article is really fond of the term trial lawyer. (As you can see I am kind of fond of it myself) He describes the suit as being brought by a “Democrat trial lawyer” and later said “Unfortunately, this junk lawsuit has gone on for four years, and to the Democratic trial lawyers’ dreams, will likely go on two or three more.” Wow it must really be tough to try and get “trial lawyer” into every sentence while still throwing in junk lawsuit and managing to avoid the issue that your organization was found to have violated Texas law. You do manage to state that you will immediately appeal. Let me help you out here. The lawyer you used during the trial of the case was (I would hope) a “trial lawyer” and now you will probably hire an “appellate lawyer” unless your trial lawyer is also your appellate lawyer. I wonder if you would have preferred using an auto mechanic to try your case, or maybe a surgeon, baker, banker or candlestick maker. It appears that your focus groups have convinced you that the term trial lawyer will cause ordinary people to suddenly lose all sense of justice and blindly ignore what your organization did in trying to buy an election. Trial lawyers try cases. We also advise clients to resolve claims and disputes, not file cases if there is not a claim and not file frivolous (you apparently know the it by the term “junk”) lawsuits or defenses. Trial lawyers understand this. Maybe you should have hired a trial lawyer, or better yet just not violated the law. Wow what a concept, then you wouldn’t have needed that evil trial lawyer.