Claims and Bad Faith Law Blog

EXHAUSTING ADMINISTRATIVE REMEDIES REQUIRED TO CHALLENGE FLORIDA INSURANCE RATE.

In People's Trust MGA, LLC v. Pesta, ___ So. 3d ___, 2019 WL 4458813 (Fla. 4th DCA September 28, 2019), one of Florida's District Courts of Appeal held that failure to challenge rates or rating plans through the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation is jurisdictional.  In Florida, statutes exist which afford opportunities to challenge insurance rates that the Florida OIR is empowered to approve.

Failure to exhaust these administrative remedies deprives Florida trial courts of jurisdiction to entertain lawsuits which challenge insurance rates in Florida.   There was no need to address the federal filed rate doctrine in this Florida insurance case and so the Florida appellate court did not do so.

Please Read The Disclaimer. ©2019 Dennis J. Wall.  All Rights Reserved.

 

FOOD STAMP PROGRAM IS ABOUT WHETHER PEOPLE HAVE ENOUGH TO EAT, ...

NOT WHETHER THEY WORK OR ARE CAPABLE OF WORKING.  OTHER PROGRAMS FOCUS ON THAT.  NOT THIS ONE.

Bad faith breach of fiduciary obligations occurs in many fields besides insurance.  Bad faith appears whenever individuals or organizations benefit themselves at the expense of others with powers delegated to the individual or organization in power for the benefit of others.  The proposed rules changes to the Food Stamp Program, now called "SNAP," are many things.  You can bet your summary judgment that there is no genuine issue but that these proposed rules changes are in bad faith.

Yesterday I sent the following Comments to the Secretary of Agriculture and a division of the U.S. Department of Agriculture that is ironically called the "Food and Nutrition Service." 

COMMENTS TO PROPOSED SNAP RULE REVISIONS.

Monday, September 23, 2019.

You published your Proposed SNAP rule revisions along with your commentary in the Federal Register, 84 F.R. 35570 - 33581. You wrote that you propose to redefine "benefits" from the Food and Nutrition Act written by Congress, and that you propose "to limit the types of non-cash TANF benefits conferring categorical eligibility to those that focus on subsidized employment, work supports and childcare." 84 F.R. at 35570.

 

1. Your first proposed change is to redefine "benefits" in the Food and Nutrition Act written by Congress.

You wrote that you wanted to redefine "benefits" for purposes of "categorical eligibility to mean ongoing and substantial benefits[.}" 84 F.R. at 35570. Your redefinition of "benefits" in your proposed rule change is invalid and unauthorized, and it is preempted by statutes enacted by Congress because it directly conflicts with the Food and Nutrition Act and the statutory provisions enacting the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) written by Congress.

    "Benefit" for purposes of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program "means the value of supplemental nutrition assistance provided to a household by means of" various sources described in 7 USCA § 2012 (d). There is no room in the statutory definition to add your alien concept of "ongoing and substantial benefits." If the statute needs amending, it is up to Congress to amend it, not you.

    You have no authority to redefine the "benefit" which Congress intended to address. Requiring the provision or receipt of "ongoing and substantial benefits" is simply not "other means of providing assistance, as determined by the Secretary," which is the only discretion you have been given in the Congressional definition of "benefit" in 7 USCA § 2012(d)(2).

    For all these reasons, your proposed rule is unreasonable.

    Your proposed rule is also unreasonable because it does not address the problem you lay out for your proposed rule in 84 F.R. at 35570, which you say is that "categorical eligibility for SNAP [can] be conferred on households based on receipt of minimal benefits issued by TANF-funded programs ...." If that is true and if that is your problem, then the "TANF-funded programs" of which you speak are the programs to be addressed, not the statutory definition of SNAP "benefits."

    Your proposed rule, again, is unreasonable because it does not address your problem with "TANF-funded programs which may not conduct a robust eligibility determination and do not meaningfully move families toward self-sufficiency." 84 F.R. at 35570. Your proposed rule does not even address any such "TANF-funded programs," even assuming that such programs may exist. Even if such programs exist, that they "may not conduct a robust eligibility determination" is not addressed by your proposed rule here.

    You do not provide any evidence at all -- and I am not aware that any evidence exists but it is not my burden to produce such evidence, the burden is yours and you have not met it -- that your proposed rule will somehow "ensure that TANF-funded programs conferring categorical eligibility align more closely with SNAP eligibility standards outlined in the Food and Nutrition Act." 84 F.R. at 35572.

    Further, whether such programs may or may not "conduct a robust eligibility determination," back to 84 F.R. at 35570, is a policy consideration that was already addressed by Congress when it implemented SNAP as a program of block grants to the States. If you are unhappy with how the States are directing their grant money under this program, you should address them and not redefine "benefits" instead. Parenthetically, your stated "determination" that your proposed rule "does not have federalism implications" is obviously hooey, in other words, it is false.

 

2. Your proposed rule would increase hunger and poverty in the United States "because," as you say, "more elderly individuals may not otherwise meet the SNAP eligibility requirements." 84 F.R. at 35576. For those additional reasons, your proposed rule is not reasonable.

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program is about whether people have enough to eat, not whether they are working or capable of working. Congress set out the purpose of SNAP in 7 USCA § 2013(a). Under that statute, the Secretary is authorized by Congress to run "a supplemental assistance program under which, at the request of the State agency, eligible households within the State shall be provided an opportunity to obtain a more nutritious diet through the issuance to them of an allotment[.]"

    Your second announced proposed rule change, which is "to limit the types of non-cash TANF benefits conferring categorical eligibility to those that focus on subsidized employment, work supports and childcare" 84 F.R. at 35570, is unreasonable under SNAP for many reasons.

    Eligibility for SNAP has never involved "subsidized employment, work supports and childcare" so that people including parents can work. Other federal programs and other federal statutes and, yes, rules address your expressed concerns with "subsidized employment, work supports and childcare." Your proposed rule is not authorized by SNAP, and once again your proposed rule is also contrary to the Congressional purpose and statutes.    

    Your commentary in the Federal Register is replete with seemingly uncountable references to people who receive SNAP going out and getting a job -- regardless of whether the people who apply for SNAP are too old or too infirm to be capable of working. Those sentiments are inconsistent with the purpose of SNAP which, to say again, is about whether people have enough to eat. It was not the purpose of Congress in enacting SNAP to focus on whether people are working or capable of work because other statutes deal with work requirements while this statute focuses on the issue of people getting enough to eat.

    Your concern in the end with jobs and work supports "that support family self-sufficiency" 84 F.R. at 35572, and "that support meaningful work opportunities ... that help move families from welfare to self-sufficiency" 84 F.R. at 35573 and see 84 F.R. at 35574, is not the concern of SNAP. Your concerns are better expressed in the context of TANF, then, and should be directed there if at all. Your proposed rule is unreasonable under SNAP.

    And your proposed rule is discriminatory against the elderly. You admit as much when you write "that there is a potential for civil rights impacts to result" if your proposed rule is implemented "because more elderly individuals may not otherwise meet the SNAP eligibility requirements." 84 F.R. at 355776.

    Discrimination is not a reasonable result.

    Parenthetically, did you mean that "more" elderly people will be affected than not, or that "more" elderly people will not be able to receive SNAP allotments because of the new SNAP eligibility requirements under your proposed rule and, if that is what you meant, then what other rules exist, aside from your proposed rule, which in your mind would also prevent elderly people from receiving SNAP allotments? You can see that your language is confusing and it is hard to argue that confusing language leads to reasonable results in any case.

3. SNAP is a program of block grants from your Federal government to the States, as previously noted. The additional requirements which your proposed rule would impose upon the States are unreasonable and in any event you are not authorized to be the one to impose new requirements upon the States.

You admit that "[u]nder the proposed rule, a State would be required to inform FNS [the USDA Food and Nutrition Service] of all non-cash TANF benefits that confer categorical eligibility." 84 F.R. at 35574 - 35575. You call this new requirement that you impose a "notification requirement," and you say that it "would not unduly burden most State agencies," which makes it okay, you say. 84 F.R. at 35575.

    Yet, you claim that you "considered" whether your proposed rule has federalism implications and you also claim that you "determined" that there are no federalism implications here. To use a good old word that completely describes what you are saying, that's hooey, in other words, that's false. And unreasonable.

 

4. Conclusion.

For all these reasons, whether taken separately or together, your proposed rule is unreasonable under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program statutes enacted by Congress. Your proposed rule should be withdrawn and rewritten before it is implemented, if ever. If it is implemented it should be struck down.

    Thank you for your consideration.

Download COMMENTS TO PROPOSED SNAP RULE REVISIONS. 092319.  

Please Read The Disclaimer. ©2019 Dennis J. Wall.  All Rights Reserved.

REPORTS OF THE DEATH OF CALIFORNIA EMISSIONS STANDARDS ARE PREMATURE.

Newspaper reporters write that the people currently in charge of the federal government are also in charge of California, at least when it comes to automobile pollution. Newspaper headlines blare that the current regime is going to "scrap" or "revoke" (New York Times, which may charge for online access) or "pull" or "end" (Associated Press) California's regulations related to car emissions.

This did not seem right. So I checked it out. I originally began with the concept that perhaps granting waivers from federal pollution standards might be discretionary with the EPA Administrator.

That could have explained these stories and these headlines. Discretion must ordinarily be exercised in good faith so it seemed that this issue may be a good fit with this blog which is about bad faith and good faith. What I found in 45 minutes of research was enlightening. And reassuring.

The Federal Clean Air Act is a statute. Statutes can be changed only by Congress.

So that puts the idea to rest right away of any federal government agencies trying to "scrap" and "pull" any State's laws or regulations. To my knowledge, Congress has not acted to change the Clean Air Act to bar California or any other State from writing regulations that require more protections on automobile emission levels than those who currently occupy the federal government would require.

The Administrator of the Federal Environmental Agency cannot act on her or his own to "scrap" or "pull" California laws or regulations. The EPA Administrator is statutorily authorized to prescribe regulations and standards for automobile emissions. 42 USCA § 7521(a)(2). But the statute allows for differences in regulations and standards. For example, even a motor vehicle manufacturer -- not just a State -- can certify that changes to vehicles will not result in failure to comply with standards promulgated by the EPA Administrator. 42 USCA § 7541(a)(2).

More important, the Administrator "shall" grant a waiver of the federal standards "if the State determines" that the State standards will be "at least as protective of public health and welfare as applicable federal standards." 42 USCA § 7543(b)(1) (emphasis added).

This is mandatory language. It directs the EPA Administrator when and where to grant waivers under the Clean Air Act. It leaves it to the States to determine whether State standards comply and, once that determination is made by the State then the federal official -- the EPA Administrator -- has no discretion but to grant the waiver. The Administrator shall grant a waiver of the federal standards if the State determines that the State standards comply with the Clean Air Act. If the EPA Administrator has no discretion to deny waivers, then the EPA Administrator has no discretion to rescind waivers that have already been given.

Case closed as they say.

Yet there's more. Other States that adopt emissions standards that follow California emissions standards for which a waiver has been granted are automatically qualified for waiver status under the Clean Air Act. 42 USCA § 7507.

Moreover, any person can file a civil action against the Administrator "where there is alleged a failure of the Administrator to perform any act or duty under this chapter which is not discretionary," 42 USCA § 7604(a)(2) (emphasis added), so that it seems clear that not only does the EPA Administrator not have any discretion to decline -- or rescind -- any waivers but anyone in America can sue if the Administrator fails to grant or uphold waivers for State standards that are at least as stringent as the Clean Air Act would require.

To rephrase a quote from Mark Twain, the reports of the death of California's emission standards are premature.

Please Read The Disclaimer. ©2019 Dennis J. Wall. All Rights Reserved.

FACEBOOK, MEET THY CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA MATCH. Part Two.

The first of two articles about the same case discussed below, was posted here on September 12, 2019. This is the second article on the subject of the invasion of privacy Multi-District Litigation against Facebook pending in the Northern District of California at this time.

In what appears to be a direct rebuke of one of the Roberts Court's decisions, a Federal District Judge ruled that a class of plaintiffs can sue a company for invasion of privacy because invasion of privacy is both "concrete" and "particularized" enough to sustain a claim. This ruling came despite the District Judge's recognition that the claims alleged against Facebook in this federal lawsuit involve "an intangible privacy injury[.]" In re: Facebook, Inc., Consumer Privacy User Profile Litig., ___ F. Supp. 3d ___, MDL No. 2843, No. 18-md-02843-VC, 2019 WL 4261048, at *9 (N.D. Cal. September 9, 2019) (Chhabria, USDJ).

"This lawsuit, which stems from the Cambridge Analytica scandal, is about Facebook's practice of sharing its users' personal information with third parties." In re: Facebook, Inc., Consumer Privacy User Profile Litigation, 2019 WL 4261048, at *1.

It will be useful to recall the specific allegations in the operative complaint.  Although they were detailed in the first article posted here about this case, for readers' convenience and at risk of seeming repetitive, the specific allegations against Facebook in this case will be repeated in the present article. The plaintiffs alleged four categories of actionable conduct:

The plaintiffs allege that Facebook violated their privacy rights (and other rights) because: (i) they engaged in sensitive communications that included photographs, videos they made, videos they watched, Facebook posts, likes, and private one-on-one messages; (ii) they intended to share these communications only with a particular person or a group of people; (iii) Facebook made those communications widely available to third parties in a variety of ways; and (iv) as a result, third parties were able to develop detailed dossiers on the plaintiffs including information about their locations, their religious and political preferences, their video-watching habits, and other sensitive matters.

In re Facebook Consumer Privacy User Profile Litigation, 2019 WL 4261048, at *9.

In the face of these allegations, Facebook filed a motion to dismiss based on several grounds, one of which we will address in the present article. Facebook advocated that the invasion of privacy lawsuit against it should be dismissed by this federal court because, Facebook argued, "that even if its users had a privacy interest in the information they made available only to friends, there is no standing to sue in federal court because there were no tangible negative consequences from the dissemination of this information."

In this case, the District Court denied Facebook's motion to dismiss and rejected Facebook's standing argument in particular: "That too is wrong." The Federal District Judge explained that "the law has long recognized that a privacy invasion is itself the kind of injury that can be redressed in federal court, even if the invasion does not lead to some secondary economic injury like identity theft." In re: Facebook, Inc., Consumer Privacy User Profile Litigation, 2019 WL 4261048, at *1.

The ruling in this case began with the U.S. Supreme Court's standing requirements, which have come to be known as the Spokeo "injury in fact" requirement. Simply put, the Spokeo decision found a requirement in the U.S. Constitution that a plaintiff in a lawsuit in federal court must allege an actual or concrete injury in order to have a constitutionally required "case or controversy" that a federal court can adjudicate.

The ruling began by pronouncing Spokeo to be "black-letter law[.]" After bowing to the supremacy of the Supreme Court, the District Court proceeded to quote the Supreme Court's Spokeo decision to reject the argument in this particular case that an injury must not only be "concrete" and "particularized," but the alleged injury must always be "tangible," too:

But it’s black-letter law that an injury need not be “tangible” to be cognizable in federal court. Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, ––– U.S. ––––, 136 S. Ct. 1540, 1549, 194 L.Ed.2d 635 (2016) (“Although tangible injuries are perhaps easier to recognize, we have confirmed in many of our previous cases that intangible injuries can nevertheless be concrete.”). And courts have often held that this particular type of intangible injury – disclosure of sensitive private information, even without further consequence – gives rise to Article III standing.

In re: Facebook, Inc., Consumer Privacy User Profile Litigation, 2019 WL 4261048, at *8.

After establishing that at least some so-called intangible injuries can constitutionally be redressed in federal courts, the District Court addressed the twin Spokeo requirements that the alleged injuries be both "concrete" and "particularized."

The injury alleged in this case "is 'concrete' largely for the reasons already discussed," namely, if you use a company's social media platform to share your sensitive information only with your friends, "then you suffer a concrete injury when the company disseminates that information widely."

The alleged injury was "particularized, at least for some of the plaintiffs," because it was allegedly suffered "directly by the individual plaintiff" and was different from the generalized injury "that members of the public at large might have to a defendant's unlawful conduct." In re: Facebook, Inc., Consumer Privacy User Profile Litigation, 2019 WL 4261048, at *9.

"Accordingly, for all the claims addressed by this ruling, Facebook cannot obtain dismissal for lack of Article III standing." In re: Facebook, Inc., Consumer Privacy User Profile Litigation, 2019 WL 4261048, at *10.

Whether and for how long this ruling will survive scrutiny by the Spokeo Court, remains to be seen. For now, this wise ruling is the law that governs at least one company.

Please Read The Disclaimer. ©2019 Dennis J. Wall. All Rights Reserved.

FACEBOOK, MEET THY CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA MATCH. Part One.

Facebook has been sued for invasion of privacy.  The plaintiffs' allegations "stem[] from the Cambridge Analytica scandal," and their alleged class action "is about Facebook's practice of sharing its users' personal information with third parties."  In re:  Facebook, Inc., Consumer Privacy User Profile Litig., ___ F. Supp. 3d ___, MDL No. 2843, No. 18-md-02843-VC, 2019 WL 4261048, at *1 (N.D. Cal. September 9, 2019) (Chhabria, USDJ).

In particular, the plaintiffs suing Facebook over the infamous Cambridge Analytica scandal and asserting claims over Facebook's reported business model of selling its customers' personal information to third parties, allege four groups of actionable conduct:

The plaintiffs allege that Facebook violated their privacy rights (and other rights) because: (i) they engaged in sensitive communications that included photographs, videos they made, videos they watched, Facebook posts, likes, and private one-on-one messages; (ii) they intended to share these communications only with a particular person or a group of people; (iii) Facebook made those communications widely available to third parties in a variety of ways; and (iv) as a result, third parties were able to develop detailed dossiers on the plaintiffs including information about their locations, their religious and political preferences, their video-watching habits, and other sensitive matters.

In re Facebook Consumer Privacy User Profile Litigation, 2019 WL 4261048, at *9.

In the face of these allegations, Facebook filed a motion to dismiss based on three grounds.  We discuss the first of those grounds here. "First, Facebook argues that people have no legitimate privacy interest in any information they make available to their friends on social media."   In re Facebook Consumer Privacy User Profile Litigation, 2019 WL 4261048, at *1.

Facebook's first argument is simply that they cannot be sued here.  Facebook filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit -- a lawsuit, recall, that was a result of the Cambridge Analytica revelations about Facebook's reported business practices of selling sensitive information of their customers -- by saying that they, Facebook, simply cannot be sued for what they allegedly did.

The Court's concise rejection of this first Facebook argument is already well-known, that "Facebook's argument could not be more wrong."  

The Court explained why at the outset of its opinion, in a concise and compelling summary followed by the written opinion in this ruling:

When you share sensitive information with a limited audience (especially when you’ve made clear that you intend your audience to be limited), you retain privacy rights and can sue someone for violating them.

In re Facebook Consumer Privacy User Profile Litigation, 2019 WL 4261048, at *1.

Facebook's second argument that it should not be sued in this case is that the plaintiffs did not allege any "concrete" and "particularized" injury, so that even if the plaintiffs suffered an injury otherwise recognized by the law, still they could not sue here in this federal court case because they arguably lacked standing to sue Facebook.  In the next article, we will address that argument and the Court's disposition of it.

Please Read The Disclaimer. ©2019 Dennis J. Wall.  All Rights Reserved.

STATE FILED RATE DOCTRINES BELONG TO THE STATES, NOT FEDS.

In Castillo v. Johnson, No. CV-17-04688-PHX-DRY, 2019 WL 4222289, at *1 (D. Ariz. September 5, 2019), a group that the federal judge called "the Bribery Defendants" were sued for racketeering, unjust enrichment, and "conspiring to unlawfully raise utility rates through racketeering, wire fraud, and bribery of a public servant."

In response to these claims, the Bribery Defendants actually alleged that bribing them was immunized by the Filed Rate Doctrine! In other words, the utility rates in question were allegedly subject to approval by an authorized administrative agency, they argued. That meant, according to them, that there could be no claim against them even if they took bribes to charge the approved utility rates.

Well, the long and the short of it is that the federal judge rejected the Bribery Defendants' argument in this case. First, the Federal Filed Rate Doctrine just could not apply in this case. "Because no federal rate is implicated here, the federal filed rate doctrine is inapplicable." Castillo, 2019 WL 4222289, at *3.

Second, whether or not Arizona has its own filed rate doctrine, and whether or not it would apply here anyway, the relevant Arizona administrative authority had already expressly rejected the idea that utility rates in Arizona can be obtained by bribery:

The Court is unpersuaded that Arizona has adopted a version of the filed rate doctrine. Nor is the Court persuaded that the doctrine, assuming one has been adopted, would apply to the type of conduct at issue here. Nevertheless, even assuming that Arizona has adopted a filed rate doctrine and that it applies under these circumstances, the doctrine does not bar Plaintiffs’ claims because the [Arizona Corporation] Commission repudiated the doctrine in this instance. The Court therefore denies the Bribery Defendants’ motion to dismiss.

Castillo, 2019 WL 4222289, at *8. The federal court's three-part analysis of state filed rate doctrine is instructive. First, the court looked to whether the forum state has adopted a version of the filed rate doctrine. In the course of its opinion, the federal court cautioned that this first question cannot be answered simply by resorting to federal filed rate precepts.

Second, the federal court looked to see whether a state filed rate doctrine could be applied on the merits. Even assuming that a state filed rate doctrine could apply to these facts -- after showing that the facts of this case could not support any filed rate doctrine here -- the federal court turned to the last of the trio of questions.

Third and finally, the relevant state administrative agency had already taken action that "repudiated the doctrine in this instance." Simply put, no filed rate doctrine can ever be applied in the face of state administrative agency action that repudiates it in the case at bar.

Those federal litigants and judges who have ears to hear, including in other Circuits that have ruled to the contrary based upon federal and not state filed rate doctrine rules, let them hear the voices of the states about their own filed rate doctrines.

Please Read The Disclaimer. ©2019 Dennis J. Wall. All Rights Reserved.

"IT'S THE QUOTA, STUPID."

Some policies of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) may appear to be puzzling at first glance, until you suspect the common denominator hidden among them.  These puzzling policies include denying automatic citizenship to the children of soldiers, sailors, marines and fliers "born abroad to active service members[.]"  Until recently, it was the policy of the United States government that the children of active military personnel serving outside of the United States were automatically citizens of the U.S.A.  They were automatically U.S. citizens every bit as much as if they had been born within the U.S. borders.  However the latest Acting Director of the USCIS, Mr. Kenneth Cuccinelli, backed out of that policy.  See Zolan Kanno-Youngs, Scrutiny Over Scope, and Purpose, of Citizenship Policy, NEW YORK TIMES, Friday, August 30, 2019, p. A18 (the New York Times may charge for online access).

Those puzzling policies also include suddenly refusing permission for children already permitted to receive medical care in the United States, because they are in danger of death without it, to remain in the United States.  Even though deporting them means sending them to their deaths.  See Miriam Jordan and Caitlin Dickerson, Sick Migrants Undergoing Lifesaving Care Can Now Be Deported, NEW YORK TIMES, Friday, August 30, 2019, p. A19.  This too is a change in policy instituted by Mr. Cuccinelli (a/k/a "the Cooch") (it bears repeating:  the New York Times may charge for online access).

But the motivation behind all these policy changes ordered by Kenneth Cuccinelli is almost certainly the same:  A quota.  A quota like the quota supposedly imposed on police officers to hand out tickets.  Whether true or not, that quota always surfaces about police officers (and police officers almost always deny it).  Except in this case it's a quota of reducing the number of people who are in the United States -- or who would be, absent these changes in policy -- other than people who were born here.

So, reporters and journalists trying to cover this story, look for tell-tale signs of quota enforcement:  things like bonuses, promotions, salary increases, and gifts like trips and such, provided by USCIS or any other agency of the current regime to any federal employee who reduces the number of people in the United States who were not born here in the first place.

That may be only the beginning.

P.S. on Tuesday, September 3, 2019:

After reports like the ones linked above were published, USCIS enigmatically announced that they "may" be looking at their deferred medical exemptions policy changes.  Nobody can tell what that means.  See for yourself:  See, e.g., Miriam Jordan, Administration to Reconsider Deportation of Seriously Ill / Program Allowing Care Had Been Eliminated, NEW YORK TIMES, Tuesday, September 3, 2019 (readers be aware:  the New York Times may charge for online access); Priscilla Alvarez, Immigration Agency to Re-Open Some Requests to Defer Deportation, CNN.com posted Monday, September 2, 2019.   Still no word, unfortunately, about the current regime's quota system.  And no word, either, in these articles about Mr. Ken Cuccinelli's hand in these changes in U.S. government policy.

Please Read The Disclaimer. ©2019 Dennis J. Wall.  All Rights Reserved.

This article was written before Hurricane Dorian could inflict damage including to the power supply. It has been previously posted for today.

Pre-Dorian Damage Report: FLORIDA "DISINTERESTED APPRAISER."

It has been held that in Florida a "disinterested appraiser" under an insurance contract using that term does not include either "the insureds' agent/public adjuster." See State Farm Fla. Ins. Co. v. Sanders, No. 3D19-927, 2019 WL 3309217, at *1 (Fla. 3d DCA July 24, 2019).

The Florida appellate court actually had to quash a Florida trial judge's order in this case "allowing the insureds' agent/public adjuster to act as their 'disinterested' appraiser." Sanders, 2019 WL 3309217, at *1. Florida is one of the few jurisdictions where there could have been any doubt about that.

Please Read The Disclaimer. ©2019 Dennis J. Wall. All Rights Reserved.
This article was written for posting at this time before Hurricane Dorian inflicted any damage on Florida.