I am fucking livid. Trial set for Monday in a case that's been going on for four years. There's some last minute settlement discussions, but the other side is still offering pennies. I ask the defense lawyer what the fuck is going on and if he can give me some insight considering the undisputed damages are more than $500k. He basically says, "We think this is excluded under the policy and we'll file a DJ action if we lose. We're defending the claim but we won't pay it. And if we lose on liability we're going to appeal." Dude, why the fuck are you just now bringing up this coverage issue after we've been fighting like cats and dogs on liability and damages for four years? Do you know how much fucking time and money I've wasted dealing with this? Sandbagging son of a bitch.
Probably, but it's more complicated than just the policy language and involves a third-party claims administrator company and some behind-the-veil facts that they didn't tell us about until today. I'd 100% fire the attorney if I was the insurance company for wasting money on defense costs for four years.
Did you ever get an acknowledgement that they were defending under an ROR? This sounds a lot like bad faith. Defense and coverage have to be separate. The defense lawyer is acting in an obvious conflict of interests.
If you’re defending, you have a duty to find/preserve coverage for your client. I’ve ghostwritten dec action complaints for clients’ personal attorneys to file in a number of cases.
colonel_forbin write a letter to the defense attorney telling him that y’all will enforce any judgment against his client/insured personally, regardless of the coverage decision. Shine a bright ass light on that conflict. I bet the client has no idea he could have his own lawyer.
Nope, no acknowledgement. It's a case with claims against a company and the owner, and policy only covered the company. The owner had separate, independent counsel that he was having to pay out of his pocket. I don't know whether they informed the owner, but I do know they didn't inform the owner's independent lawyer because I just got off the phone with him and he was pissed. And we settled with the owner and two other parties two weeks ago without any idea that there may be coverage issues for the company. We would have totally done everything different as little as two weeks ago had we known (to say nothing of the four years we've worked on this case).
Lean on the personal attorney. The company has the same rights under a policy as a person would. They can’t expose it to a judgment just because it could dissolve. That’s akin to saying that you don’t have a duty to settle within limits because a person could file bankruptcy if you got an excess.
Yeah, no beuno from that guy. Appreciate guys like wes tegg that do it the right way. I mean most do, but when you get one that doesn't, just makes the whole experience miserable. Got a case I'm trying to get tried in spring with defendants fighting each other over indemnity/defense issues. Trying to continue my trial over those. Um no, you can't file a 3rd part complaint in my jury trial case that is solely related to coverage issues.
I have a lawyer question. Please help. I know a couple who separated awhile ago they have a 8 year old son. They had a “friendly” arrangement about custody and child support. For some reason the dad stopped with the support so the mom after a few months of not getting anything stopped letting the son go to him. She went to court and got a court order for child support. They have an appointment for mediation for visitation. My question is this he was supposed start paying in January but was refusing. I talked to him and had him pay about 30% of what the court ordered. Can someone tell me what he is risking by not paying? I am closer with the kid’s mom but I like the guy so I don’t want him to get in further trouble. Their mediation is in June. What happens if he doesn’t pay the full amount from now to then?
Being found in contempt of court and the prejudical effect when/if it goes before a judge. Child support and visitation are separate things and you can't withhold one because you're unhappy with the other.
Depends on the state. Here failure to pay child support is contempt of court, usually civil but sometimes criminal; however, some states make it a crime to not pay child support. He could potentially be looking at jail time
It’s here in California. What can I tell him to get him to start paying? Would the partial payment be any better than nothing or would the court see it as nothing? Also the mom isn’t letting him see him because of him not willing to pay the support. There is currently no court order to the visitation so while I find it wrong for her to do that she isn’t in violation. Or is she violating anything?
Tell him he's looking at going to jail if he doesn't pay. Partial payment is better than no payment, but likely won't save him from jail time. Idk about family court procedure in California (or where his case is procedurally) but he should be able to ask the court to set a temporary visitation schedule for the pendency of the litigation.
thank you. I’ve been trying to help and the mom is willing to have things go back to normal if he starts complying with the Child support order.
Don’t know if your state allows it, but one option worth looking into at least is coverage by estoppel. In some circumstances the insurer’s failure to raise a timely ROR and alert all interested parties could constitute a waiver of an otherwise valid coverage defense, especially if the late defense results in demonstrable prejudice to the insured.
Yeah, Alabama has that. The problems it that I'm guessing the owner was informed, but he's just such a shit human that he probably didn't even inform his personal lawyer, who would have told us. It's a total mess.
tell him if he doesn’t pay the balance in full he might go to jail Again, I can only speak from my experience here in Tennessee, but we can negotiate settlements (purge payments to purge the contempt) but idk if that’s how they roll in Cali. So general rule is the more he pays, the better, and his safest bet is to satisfy the entire balance. Like Tilly said, child support and visitation are two separate legal issues so the mom withholding the kid does nothing to the court order mandating that he pay child support.
Yeah, he better pay. He’s going to get slapped by the court—either sanctions including time or less generous custodial/visitation order. Nothing but bad is coming from failure to pay.
One other thing, in sc and I'm pretty sure all other states if you have a history of non-payment then you're much more likely to be required to make payments through the court or state child support division. This normally includes him paying service fees on top of the support. In sc that's 5% in fees above and beyond what he's required to pay, so $1000 a month would become $1050 a month he's paying. It'll essentially cost him even more money to continue down this path.
I have clients who have like $45k+ in outstanding child support who are out and about like nothing is wrong
Here, a child support lien is primary to pretty much everything. I once had a personal injury case settle for $100k and every dime of the plaintiff's settlement cut went to his baby momma.
I’ve been working contempt cases for about it a year and 45k would be around the median amount of arrears. I’ve had probably double digit clients who were 6 figures behind, although that is almost always due to a high retroactive amount
And just asked a judge during docket to push back a trial 60 days because of my bachelor party everyone else in the court room was cracking up
Blasted Tricare Liens. Have $100k settlement that is taking forever because of them. And another $30k premises settlement held up because of them.
I was pretty surprised on that premises case. Some cooler was leaking at a grocery store and my lady falls because of the liquid and ruptures her hamstring. Had like $13k in meds. The adjuster pretty much admitted liability-Liberty Mutual-and fought me on damages. Premises law is tough here so they must have known they had a leaky fridge/cooler. They usually fight you like hell on liability in premises cases.
Judge was like wellllll I don’t know if that’s a good reason then she was just like yeah that’s fine see you in April
Ok so we spoke about this the other day but now it's happening to me. I have a MVA case where a guy has a lien for child support. I'm not aware of many situations in which an attorney fee does not have priority. So I'm just trying to make sure I will at least get paid. I've dealt with this in comp cases but I don't know if I've ever dealt with it in a MVA case.
I'm sure the carrier is going to want to pay it regardless but in this case it is a Georgia child support lien trying to attach to a Mississippi MVA case. I wonder if I have any arguments there.
Also does the child support agency ever negotiate on these things or do they refuse and insist full payment? The settlement is going to be less than he owes.
so, i've handled ~10 of these and my experience has been: you will get your full fee the medical providers will get paid as they normally do your client will get between 500-1000 as, basically, an incentive to actually sign the release. the rest of the money will go to the attorney general or whoever handles the child support in that state and will be forwarded to the person who is owed the child support