State Farm continues quest for KLG disqualification
“This motion seeks disqualification based on the fact that SKG attorneys — including those who are still in this case — offered a different State Farm ‘insider’ and material fact witness in this case, engineer Brian Ford, thousands of dollars a month to ‘consult’ for them.”
State Farm is seeking to disqualify each firm that makes up the KLG, formerly known as the Scruggs Katrina Group. Scruggs withdrew the Scruggs Law Firm from the group after he was indicted on federal charges that he attempted to bribe a state judge in a dispute over at least $26.5 million in attorneys fees earned in Katrina settlements.
The company has reasoned in the case McIntosh v. State Farm that the SKG’s decision to pay the Rigsby sisters, Kerri and Cori Rigsby Moran, $150,000 salaries as litigation consultants constitutes bribery. The Rigsby sisters copied 15,000 pages of State Farm confidential documents while working at E.A. Renfroe and Co. and turned them over to Scruggs, who then gave them the jobs.
In State Farm’s reply to the response from the KLG, the company says the focal point of its argument is Ford.
Ford is a former engineer at Forensic Analysis and Engineering Corp. who performed the analysis of the McIntoshes’ home and kept a journal that has been submitted as an exhibit. Scruggs offered Ford indemnity, a $10,000 monthly retainer and a percentage of each settlement work for the SKG to become a “fact witness” and “consultant” on a case, State Farm alleges.
Legal Newsline
2/15/8
