Posts tagged as:

insurance fraud

April 25 roundup

by Walter Olson on April 25, 2012

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March 15 roundup

by Walter Olson on March 15, 2012

  • Part III of Radley Balko series on painkiller access [HuffPo]
  • “Note: Add ‘Judge’s Nameplate’ to List of Things Not to Steal” [Lowering the Bar]
  • California’s business-hostile climate: if the ADA mills don’t get you, other suits might [CACALA]
  • Bottom story of the month: ABA president backs higher legal services budget [ABA Journal]
  • After string of courtroom defeats, Teva pays to settle Nevada propofol cases [Oliver, earlier]
  • Voting Rights Act has outstayed its constitutional welcome [Ilya Shapiro/Cato] More: Stuart Taylor, Jr./The Atlantic.
  • Huge bust of what NY authorities say was $279 million crash-fraud ring NY Post, NYLJ, Business Insider, Turkewitz (go after dishonest docs on both sides)]

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Cracked has a selection that includes disgraced Pennsylvania judge Michael Joyce (on whom), the pro wrestler on disability, a church with leaders who “have had so many X-rays that I wouldn’t be surprised if they glowed in the dark,” and — eeeeuw! — a couple of deliberately glass-eating restaurant-goers.

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“Houston plaintiffs’ attorney Warren Todd Hoeffner, whose criminal case ended in a mistrial in October 2009, has struck a deal with federal prosecutors. Prosecutors agreed to defer a new trial for one year on the criminal charges against Hoeffner. Among other conditions, the agreement calls for Hoeffner to pay the government $2,485,000 and agree to a voluntary suspension of his Texas law license for two years.” Prosecutors said Hoeffner paid millions to insurance company claims department employees in the course of obtaining $34 million in silicosis payouts; his lawyers argued at trial that the employees extorted consideration as a condition of approving otherwise fair settlements. [Brenda Jeffreys, Texas Lawyer; earlier here and here]

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July 24 roundup

by Walter Olson on July 24, 2010

  • San Francisco considers, then tables, ban on pet sales at stores [Amy Alkon]
  • Florida: we’ll pull you into our courts as an online-defamation defendant even if you’ve never set foot here [CBS4.com]
  • Bratz case: “Alex Kozinski gives Barbie a spanking” [AtL]
  • GEICO launches counterattack against crash fraud in New York [PoL]
  • When a lawyer sues the wrong doctor: hey, isn’t everyone entitled to mistakes now and then? [American Medical News, sanctions affirmed in Virginia case]
  • “[Congressman Alan] Grayson’s shakedown lawsuit threatens D.C. business” [LaFetra, PLF/Examiner]
  • Asbestos: Do component makers have a duty to warn about other manufacturers’ hazardous products? [Cal Biz Lit and two followups on California decisions, NAM and Levy Phillips & Konigsberg on a since-settled New York case against Foster Wheeler]
  • Subsidies for durum wheat flowed in happy circle for everyone but taxpayer and consumer [Mark Perry]

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“For several years, [defendant Susana] Chung ‘acted as the conduit’ of fraudulent insurance claims filed in connection with staged crashes in Northern California, said Larry Blazer, an Alameda County assistant district attorney.” Nearly 100 persons, mostly “victims” of bogus accidents but also including three chiropractors, have been found guilty in the scheme. [San Francisco Chronicle, Oakland Tribune via ABA Journal]

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Kevin Underhill at Lowering the Bar catalogues claimant indiscretions that include performing a jig while being supposedly virtually unable to walk, and appearing regularly on a home-improvement cable TV show while collecting $147,000 in disability payments.

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No, it turns out, very much alive, and now a Florida couple may have to give back that $2 million insurance payout [Sioux Falls, S.D. Argus-Leader via Obscure Store]

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November 4 roundup

by Walter Olson on November 4, 2009

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September 15 roundup

by Walter Olson on September 15, 2009

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June 23 roundup

by Walter Olson on June 23, 2009

  • In case you were waiting for it: update on “toxic-bra” litigation [OnPoint News, Kashmir Hill, Above the Law (noting that rashes can have many different causes); earlier]
  • Parts 5 & 6 of White Coat’s malpractice-suit saga [opposition's expert witness; emotional support]
  • “Global Insurance Fraud by North Korea Outlined” [Washington Post]
  • British cops aren’t saying which famous buildings you can be stopped/searched for photographing [BoingBoing]
  • FBI said to probe whether construction-defect lawyers have improper ties to Nevada homeowner associations that give them business [Carter Wood at Point of Law]
  • With junk science in even criminal prosecutions, is there hope of keeping it out of civil cases? [Coyote]
  • “Remember when you could fight with a sibling and not face arrest?” [Obscure Store, 10-year-old Texas girl]
  • Australian man obtains patent on “circular transportation facilitation device”, otherwise known as “the wheel”, to make point about ease of obtaining weak patents [eight years ago on Overlawyered]

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May 7 roundup

by Walter Olson on May 7, 2009

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Former state Superior Court judge Michael Joyce, of Erie, “was sentenced this afternoon to nearly four years in prison.” Joyce’s bogus claims of neck and back pain after a rear-ending had netted him $440,000 in settlements; “the judge filed his claims on judicial letterhead, [Assistant U.S. Attorney Christian] Trabold said, and referred to himself as a judge 115 times in the letters.”

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It’s advisable to have actually been there and in the car, lest you share the fate of Ligia Lara, who drew eighteen months’ supervised probation on charges that included motor vehicle accident fraud [Lawrence, Mass., Eagle-Tribune]

Renewable dental treasure

by Walter Olson on January 30, 2009

The Massachusetts attorney general’s office says Tod Schaffer of Brookline filed twenty-one injury reports over the same broken tooth and got payments from at least ten restaurants.

“Former Superior Court Judge Michael T. Joyce was convicted Wednesday on charges that he lied about neck and back injuries and abused his position on the bench to receive a $440,000 payout from two insurance companies following a slow-speed automobile accident. … the judge filed his claims on judicial letterhead, [Assistant U.S. Attorney Christian] Trabold said, and referred to himself as a judge 115 times in the letters.” (Leo Strupczewski, “Former Judge Convicted for Lying About Injuries in Auto Accident”, Legal Intelligencer, Nov. 20). Earlier here and here. The trial was covered extensively in the Pennsylvania press, and the defense called a parade of witnesses, including high-ranking judges, in support of the accused jurist. (Paula Reed Ward, “Fellow jurists defend judge charged with faking injury”, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Nov. 11)

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A year ago we reported on the indictment of Erie, Pa.-based state appellate judge Michael T. Joyce, whose $440,000 settlement after a rear-ending of his Mercedes-Benz was premised on his having suffered physically disabling injuries, but who in fact was found to have engaged in scuba diving and golf, among other pastimes, during the period in question. According to the indictment, the judge used the proceeds to buy a Harley-Davidson and a share in a Cessna, as well as for other purposes. Today his trial is set to begin. (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Tribune-Review, Erie Times-News via Bashman).

If you wonder why insurance fraud and insurance expense are so high in New York state it’s because of opinions like AA Acupuncture Service v. State Farm Mutual Insurance Company. (The fact that the plaintiff is a quack-upuncturist immediately suggests problems, no?) Civil Court Judge Arlene P. Bluth agreed that there was “uncontradicted, overwhelming circumstantial evidence” that an accident had been faked. But State Farm was still not entitled to summary judgment on the litigation of bad-faith claims by three medical providers who insisted that State Farm was liable as the insurer of the woman who claimed to have been injured in the accident. (Plaintiffs deny fraud, though apparently wasn’t able to rebut the evidence of fraud at the motion stage.)

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