Indiana-headquartered Shepherd Insurance, ranked as one of the largest groups of independent agencies, has acquired Arnold Insurance in southwest Florida, the company announced.
The partnership will keep the Arnold team in place while giving access to Shepherd’s broader carrier relationships and resources. Kyle Arnold is owner of the agency in Port Charlotte, near Fort Myers. The agency was founded in 2014.
Shepherd, founded in 1977, now has seven Florida agency offices and 45 offices in six states, writing commercial and personal insurance, and offering employee benefits. Quinn Shepherd is CEO.
In asking the court to dismiss the case, the lawyers and doctors first argued that their conduct is immune from liability because they are acting as advocates consistent with their clients’ right to petition the courts for personal injury recovery under the First Amendment’s Petition Clause. The judge disagreed that the Petition Clause immunity bars the claims at this stage as the court cannot say now whether Uber and FedEx will prove a fraudulent scheme not immunized from suit.
The court found that Uber and FedEx sufficiently pleaded that the lawyers directed the doctors to produce fraudulent medical records which informed their demands for compensation far beyond the actual injuries.
The lawyers and doctors have also argued the doctrine of res judicata (a matter can’t be relitigated) requires dismissal based on the settlement agreements in the pleaded Philadelphia state court cases. They also claimed the federal court lacks jurisdiction to hear appeals from state court decisions. But the federal judge said neither of these doctrines require dismissal at this stage “given the exhaustive allegations.”
The lawyers and doctors also claimed there is no basis for racketeering including about how their alleged conduct proximately caused Uber and FedEx to pay fees and costs and voluntarily settle claims at an agreed number.
Uber argued that the alleged racketeering conduct is not confined to litigation filings but includes the creation and transmission of false records and they maintain their allegations plausibly plead mail and wire fraud with particularity.
The judge noted that Uber pleads numerous specific examples identifying the participants in the scheme, the nature of the records, each professional’s role, and how the doctors transmitted records through interstate wires and incorporated those records into demands and litigation filings.
“Uber’s pleaded facts viewed in their totality support a reasonable inference the lawyers and doctors acted with fraudulent intent, or at minimum reckless disregard for the truth, in using the mails and interstate wires to transmit false or misleading medical documents in furtherance of the alleged scheme,” Judge Kearney wrote. “These allegations are sufficient at this stage to plausibly plead fraudulent intent.”
The judge said the lawyers and medical professionals eventually may be shown to be correct. But right now the court will allow the parties to proceed with discovery including into the extent the doctors’ reports informed the lawyers’ decision to bring these cases and then seek more than $50,000 in their complaints and whether these lawyers’ statements of “severe” injuries and “disfigurement” are fraudulent.
The judge said the court also needs to understand if the lawyers’ and doctors’ conduct caused Uber and FedEx to pay legal fees and settlements rather than continue disputing the underlying claims on the merits.
