In cross-examining Zach makes it seem that Harrell is operating off a vaguely recalled conversation and creates a strong implication that there is something really wrong with the timing of when Harrell remembers it. It becomes clear that something came out in conversations between SF’s lawyer Tucker of Butler Snow and Harrell over the “Market Performance Study” that made SF want to do the deposition.

But the dep SF is using occurred after they’d sued Hood, so they didn’t exactly base the suit on the deposition.

Suddenly in November, his lawyers (this time led by Skip Jernigan who also has represented insurance companies), calls another Harrell depo where all this comes out. Read the full depo, including Zack Scruggs cross and Harrell’s story seems to fall apart. Harrell is smooth as silk in his answers to Skip’s questions, but seems to lose his memory when questioned by Scruggs.

In both depos, Harrell hid behind the Market Conduct study of State Farm as a reason to not answer questions. I’ve asked this before, but does anyone know what happened to this study? As a non-lawyer, I think this at least could have some major PR impact on this issue.

It seems SF is putting on the full court (no pun intended) press to divert attention from their bad faith tactics of delay, deceit and denial.

We’re talking past each other on the “administer the class” issue. Yes, lawyers want to be paid millions in fees, but they don’t want to have to earn the money by the misery of actually administering any settlement relief. That’s why I say Lee Harrell’s testimony, or at least his wording, is off kilter.

This is my last comment on this bc it’s boring and academic because the class never happened, but I will say this: no matter what NMC and Full of Questions and others say, I believe they are missing the significance of even having State Farm at the table discussing a global resolution, and Judge Senter missed the significance of it, too. It will never, ever in anybody’s wildest dreams happen again, and while they were at the table, measures should have been taken to make the deal work (if I could bold that statement and write two lines under it, I would.) What should not have happened is exactly what happened…out-of-hand rejection without trying to improve it and make the thing work, then having a final approval of the settlement. A judge can act as a sculptor with class settlements and mold the two sides to get things right. I say this without trying to be argumentative, but for anyone who understands Rule 23 and the class mechanism (muddled and abused and screwed up as it may be) reading Judge Senter’s ruling rejecting that class out of hand was reading the ruling of a very smart judge who has not ever dealt much with class actions.

And now I truly will stop talking about this, because it’s an issue without any real meat on the bones. I simply think Senter missed an opportunity to take a settlement that was not good enough and make it good enough with the bully pulpit he holds. For instance, he could have cut the lawyer’s fees in half (or down to a third of that proposed), made State Farm guarantee more money to the class, and made the opt-out provision more clear to unrepresented policyholders. If Senter had not rejected the class about a week after it was proposed, all of that could have happened, and would undoubtedly have been good for a lot of policyholders.

BTW, the lawyer who represented State Farm in front of Senter on the Class Action settlment request formerly represented Scruggs himself! Bill Reed of Baker Donelson represented Scruggs in the past in suits against Scruggs by a former partner and possibly on issues with regard to tobacco payments and setting up the corporation that bought the tobacco receivables from Scruggs and his partners and got them paid millions. Who are the principles of that corporation? Scruggs and the other tobacco lawyers.

It may have been a preliminary stage– and there is a way it all spun out of control after Senter stated his problems with it. A lot of outside forces (the fact that the settlement did not resolve the Renfroe suit problem for one) were creating pressures that made that settlement implode.

As to the fees, your comment sounds more like rhetoric than a serious objection. The proposed settlement had an amount that SF was required to pay to policyholders. I have forgotten the number, but it was north of 60 million I think. It was very likely they would have paid substantially more to policyholders. And of course they could have opted out. And the class members would have been restricted to people who had not filed suit. So it wasn’t a horrible proposal. It needed work, but it should not have been dismissed in a way that guaranteed the result we now have…no resolution in sight for policyholders.