The United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania (Conner, C.J.) granted the Firm’s motion for a directed verdict today in favor of its client, a direct marketer of insurance products, on a claim that the client violated the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) by making telemarketing calls to the Plaintiff after he had revoked his consent to receive them. Plaintiff had claimed in his complaint that he never consented to receive calls from the Firm’s client in the first place. However, prior to trial, the Court granted the Firm’s motion for summary judgment on the issue of initial consent, leaving as the only issue for trial whether the Firm’s client continued to place calls to the Plaintiff after he revoked that consent. After opening statements and the close of Plaintiff’s case, the Court agreed with the Firm’s argument that, as a matter of law, Plaintiff had not put forth sufficient evidence from which a reasonable jury could conclude that Plaintiff received telemarketing calls from the Firm’s client post-revocation.
The Firm secured a voluntary discontinuance today of breach of fiduciary duty claims brought in the Supreme Court of New York (Westchester County) against one of the Firm’s life insurance clients in connection with disbursements the client made under multiple life insurance policies valued in excess of $4 million. The life policies were purchased by a pension plan and trust and later transferred to a second trust (“Second Trust”) before the client disbursed the policies’ surrender values in accordance with directions it received from the grantor of the Second Trust. The Firm secured the discontinuance, pre-answer and before having to engage in any discovery, following a painstaking showing that the disbursements were entirely appropriate under the terms of the Second Trust and a related divorce decree that afforded the grantor of the Second Trust the right to terminate existing trustees and appoint successor trustees who then had authority to surrender the policies.
On the strength of a novel legal theory never before addressed by New York state courts, the Firm thwarted a motion to dismiss counterclaims brought on behalf of its client, a major life insurance company, which was sued for the death benefits on a life insurance policy. On behalf of the insurer, the Firm brought counterclaims on the theory that the individual whom plaintiff claimed was the original insured on the policy and whose death benefits plaintiff claimed a right to, was not actually the person who filled out the policy application and sat for the medical exam—rather, it was a much healthier, unknown imposter. Thus, the Firm argued, (i) the measuring life on the policy is the unknown imposter and not the named insured and (ii) to the extent plaintiff was claiming that the named insured was the original owner of the policy and the one who transferred interest in the policy to plaintiff, that purported insured could not legally have done so, since it was not his to transfer—it was the imposter’s. Plaintiff argued that the Firm’s position failed based on the well-established rule that life insurance policies in New York are “incontestable” after two years. The Kings County Supreme Court (Martin, J.) agreed with the Firm’s position, which had only been advanced once before, in a federal case in 1932. A copy of the Court’s decision can be found here.
The United States District Court for the District of New Jersey (Arleo, J.) entered partial summary judgment today in favor of our client, a national life insurance company, in an action brought to reinstate a lapsed life insurance policy. The Court agreed with the Firm’s arguments and entered judgment against plaintiff’s claims for violation of New Jersey’s Consumer Fraud Act, bad faith, breach of fiduciary duty, declaratory judgment, and breach of the covenant of good faith and fair dealing.
The Firm obtained today a complete dismissal in the Supreme Court of New York (Suffolk County) (Pitts, J.) of claims that the Firm’s client, a national life insurance company, wrongfully failed to pay a death benefit on a life insurance policy. The Court agreed with the Firm’s arguments that, based on documentary evidence, the policy had lapsed before the insured passed away, and the client was not estopped from lapsing the policy by its alleged acceptance of a change of beneficiary form following the lapse. The Court dismissed Plaintiff’s claims with prejudice, without leave to replead.
Fishkin Lucks won a defense verdict today in The United States District Court for the District of Connecticut on behalf of its clients The Home Depot, Inc. and Rust-Oleum Corporation, against Plaintiffs’ claims that Home Depot had negligently retained a former Rust-Oleum subsidiary that negligently installed a 100% solids epoxy cement floor coating. After hearing testimony from ten fact and expert witnesses and closing arguments in which Plaintiffs requested in excess of $1M in damages, the jury deliberated for less than an hour before returning the defense verdict.
