Insurance Law

Trailer Lawyer news: State Farm's response to Trailer Lawyer motion to reconsider

By David Rossmiller

The last strains of the song "Bye Bye Trailer Lawyer Pie" had not yet died out when the Trailer Lawyers filed a motion for reconsideration of their disqualification from Ex rel. Rigsby, the False Claims Act case that stemmed from various trailer summits and accessing of documents from a laptop in a trailer. 

State Farm has filed its response to that Trailer Lawyer motion, which seemed remarkably ill-tempered, while carefully avoiding use of the word "trailer" once again. (Remember, it's not a trailer! It's a temporary housing unit, a description, that come to think of it, also fits a thatched hut or a cardboard box.)  Here is the response, which characterizes the Trailer Lawyer motion for reconsideration as founded on false statements by the Trailer Lawyers and their clients, the Rigsby sisters.  It's a pretty good piece of work.  An excerpt:

3. Nor do the Rigsbys proffer any newly discovered evidence, focusing instead on known events that occurred long before disqualified Counsel filed their two opposition briefs to State Farm’s disqualification motion. In fact, the only “new” evidence provides additional confirmation that disqualified Counsel’s declarations contain false statements. In particular, disqualified Counsel’s assertion that they had “no involvement” in the policyholder cases is refuted by former Scruggs Katrina Group (“SKG”) attorney Derek Wyatt’s recent deposition testimony, which reveals that he and other SKG members met with a number of lawyers from Bartimus, Frickleton, Robertson & Gorny, PC (“BFRG”) for several hours to discuss “strategy” with regard to the “Hurricane Katrina cases.”

As the brief explains in a footnote, Wyatt was deposed in the Renfroe v. Rigsby case, and this deposition was under seal for a period of time.  This deposition is news to me, and I do not have and have not read the transcript.  The excerpts of the deposition contained in the brief suggest the transcript is a doozy.   

The brief also points out the mechanisms for reconsideration of a judge's decision, by that judge, are few and far between in federal court.  When I saw the Trailer Lawyer motion for reconsideration, I thought how I've never seen one of those in federal court before, although I used to see plenty of them in state court, where the rules are looser, before Oregon courts issued local rules clamping down on them.  In any event, the justification for a motion for reconsideration is much greater in a place like Oregon state court, where you rarely have a judge assigned to your case and your motion is heard by whatever harried jurist happens to get the motion by luck of the draw.  The judge likely has no research staff, no time to prepare and has never heard of your case before, completely unlike federal court. 

Anyway, thank goodness the Trailer Lawyers didn't decide to go gentle into that good night, or I wouldn't have an excuse to link once again to this post containing the lyrics to Bye Bye Trailer Lawyer Pie. All together now! One, two, three, four . . . Bye Bye Trailer Lawyer Pie, drove my trailer to the courthouse but the judge said bye bye . . . .

Full post as published by Insurance Coverage Law Blog on June 18, 2008 (boomark / email).