Lawyers fighting to stay on case
State Farm Fire and Casualty Co. is asking a federal judge in Mississippi to disqualify the lawyers from representing plaintiffs in a sweeping lawsuit that accuses State Farm of defrauding the federal government after the August 2005 storm smashed the Mississippi Gulf Coast and flooded New Orleans.
One of the firms accused of misconduct by State Farm responded Monday by calling for the judge to sanction the company’s lawyers for making “unsubstantiated allegations.”
“These are outright lies told by an arrogant and corrupt organization that has little regard for the truth or the reputations of the (lawyers) it attacks,” attorneys from the Missouri-based Graves Bartle & Marcus firm wrote in court papers.
The case involves Cori and Kerri Rigsby, two sisters who once worked for Alabama-based E.A. Renfroe, a company State Farm contracted to provide damages assessments after the hurricane.
The Rigsby sisters copied thousands of pages of internal State Farm claims records in 2006 and turned them over to tort lawyer Dickie Scruggs and others.
Scruggs sued State Farm on the sisters’ behalf, claiming they were whistle-blowers with insider knowledge of fraud.
Clarion Ledger
4/29/8
Magnolia Tribune
