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Though by now I join NMC in finding Jim Hood a fairly dreary topic, the Patsy Brumfield story in today’s Daily Journal is probably one we shouldn’t let go unfoloed — so h/ts to SameOlGrind and Its All Good for mentioning and linking it. It reads a little strangely and has some software glitches, though, so I almost wonder whether this is a draft that got published before it was actually good-to-go.
At any rate, Patsy reports that, on the night of March 12, 2001, while Jim Hood was DA for District 3 in north Mississippi, he ended up a two-car wreck on a country road.
According to court records, Hood had his truck towed to Frank Smith[']s Body Shop near home for repairs, intending to negotiate directly with Progressive Insurance Co., the company that had insurance on the offending vehicle.
About 6 p.m. March 21, the Progressive adjuster called Hood at home and said he had prepared an estimate for the repairs: $4,497.01. Hood told the adjuster not to contact Frank Smith at the body shop, saying he would deal with Progressive after driving the repaired vehicle to determine if it had permanent damage.
But Progressive sent its preliminary estimate to Smith the next day.
Fifteen days later, Progressive was faxed a letter saying it had harmed Hood by interfering with his contract with Frank Smith.
Over the next two weeks, Hood and Progressive apparently bickered back and forth about what Hood thought needed to be done to the vehicle and what Progressive was willing to do.
Progressive appears to have offered Hood $6,815.65 for the repair job, according to a letter from Hood’s father and attorney, Jim Hood Jr.
“My client has reached no agreement with you,” he wrote.
Then things really got interesting.
Now Patsy tells what happened to Progressive agent David Malone when, on April 9, 2001, he went to the body shop to pick up the damaged pieces of Hood’s truck. Though shop-owner Smith handwrote, and Ron Easley (whoever he is) witnessed, that “I told Mr. Malone that Jim Hood told me not to give any of the parts to Mr. Malone,” Malone took the parts anyway and headed back to his office, believing that Progressive had already paid for them. (Six days earlier, his colleague Michael Lee had written to Hood, reporting the “agreed price” of repairs and authorization for a rental and asking for medical information about his injuries.)
But now Easley zipped to the courthouse and, Patsy says, apparently filed a felony theft complaint against Malone (Hood recalls filing the charges himself). Anyhow, somebody filed ‘em because, later that day, Malone got arrested and charged with grand larceny and posted a $2,000 bond, pledging to appear before Justice Court on April 19.
Eleven months later – March 20, 2002 – Jim Hood filed a paperwork for a jury trial in the Circuit Court of Chickasaw County against three Progressive companies and David Malone. William C. Walker Jr. of Oxford represented the plaintiff.
Thus began four years of legal back-and-forth and three bulging case folders in the Houston courthouse.
Progressive said it wanted a dismissal or a change of venue because it couldn’t get a fair trial in Chickasaw County. It also admitted Malone took the parts, as did Malone himself.
In deposition, Hood testified that Progressive had sent none other than Tony Farese to talk to him.
“According to Mr. Farese, his conversation with you, that you sent him to me,” Hood stated, speaking to Progressive[']s lawyer, “and that if I would agree to drop the criminal charges, that y’all would agree to not sue me, and that we would settle this civil claim. And that was the conflict of interest of trying …”
Hood continued, “And I told Mr. Farese, look, I don’t have anything to do with the criminal case. You know, I’m a victim, that’s it. I’m not going to enter into any agreement like that.”
But Hood said he thought Farese’s visit was a veiled threat – that if the issue weren’t settled, Progressive was going to hire Tupelo trial lawyer Jim Waide to file a wrongful arrest action against him about Malone’s arrest.
“And that was an attempt by Progressive through you, to get me to settle a civil action with a criminal claim and create a conflict of interest in me,” Hood added. “I don’t think that was proper.”
He also said he contacted the state Attorney General[']s Office about Progressive.
In late December 2002, Judges Henry Lackey and Andrew Howorth having recused themselves, Supreme Court Chief Justice Ed Pittman appointed Joseph H. Loper, Jr., as special judge in Hood v. Progressive. The trial was to start on Feb. 7, 2005.
I’m not sure what to make of the sentence “Lawyers argued that the lawsuit came from the truck wreck and damages to the vehicle, not allegations regarding a personal injury claim,” but Patsy also says that at some point Hood alleged he’d “suffered anxiety and emotional distress from all the stress of the legal action.” He also claimed that Progressive “was trying to pull a fast one on policyholders with some profit-sharing practice.”
Another a strange phrasing: “On Nov. 24, 2004, Judge Loper ordered mediation on or before Jan. 5, 2005. Right.” (Huh?) How we get from there to here, I can’t say, but Patsy’s next sentence is “On Jan. 13, 2006 – almost five years after Jim Hood[']s truck accident in Union County – Loper signed an agreement order for dismissal of the lawsuit [']with prejudice,['] meaning the legal action was over.”
After everything was said and done, the grand larceny charge against Progressive claims agent David Malone simply went away.
The settlement apparently includes silence on both sides, there is no record to reflect officially what happened with Malone.
Hood insists his criminal-civil approach in the Chickasaw case was an isolated incident and doesn’t reflect his style of handling civil cases, including the State Farm situation.
But he also insists that when somebody does something criminally wrong, they should be charged, even if civil action is ongoing.
As I say, I suspect this story slipped into online view before its time, and it may well be that Patsy intended it to be clearer. But confusing phrases and gaps and all, it raises a familiar question, doesn’t it?
lotus, even that website you posted on RICO says you can file criminal before civil is decided, you just can’t try it unless you win the civil case. So, obviously, it’s not an unusual practice. What point am I missing?
Lotus, Ron Easley was (perhaps still is) the Assistant Chief of Police for the City of Houston at that time.
Nowducit, there is no problem with a criminal and civil matter proceeding at the same time. The problem arises when one threatens the use of the criminal process to force a settlement of a civil matter or when one initiates a criminal prosecution, not for the purpose of bringing an offender to justice, but for some ulterior motive or purpose, such as putting pressure on someone to settle a civil matter.
But just to be clear, the AG’s office did not link the criminal case with the civil case. The AG’s civil case merely asked for definitive rulings on the application of the flood exclusion and the anticoncurrent causation clause and a procedure for applying those standards. It was not confined to State Farm and did not involve any of the Rigsby documents or testimony.
The criminal case was initiated because the AG received evidence of fraud by State Farm and its adjusting and engineering contractors. It was separate from the civil cases, but it required some interaction with Scruggs because some witnesses and evidence were involved in SKG cases. The AG’s criminal case was never intended to force a civil settlement. It was intended to lead to prosecution of the criminals.
Very helpful. Thanks. Researcher, the distinction you made doesn’t seem all that hard to understand. So, this criminal case is the one the AG settled with State Farm, right? – and this civil case is the one he still has active and it relies, in part, on standards for processing claims set in Judge Senter’s ruling dismissing the “class” action filed by SKG?
If I’ve got that correct, then is this the civil case you referred to earlier when you said Hood had a slight chance of winning?
Yes. I haven’t seen a copy, but Hood says his civil settlement with State Farm requires them to have prodedures approved by the federal court and then reexamine cases based on those procedures, with state court supervision.
He was driving a 1994 silver GMC pickup truck with 120,000 miles. Progressive made a fair offer to repair yet we he wanted to pull all these shenanigans and try to make a few thousand. What a tool. No wonder we have problems.
Do we know how much the settlement was or is it UNDERSEAL?
what’s the point? State farm conditioned settlement of civil claims on dismissal of the criminal charges. Hood did not offer to dismiss criminal in exchange for civil settlement. Also, many insurance companies have been busted for conversion of damaged property. When the company takes the damaged property before acquiring title by settlement of claim, that is conversion. If the insurance company takes the property before the claim is settled, they have taken the evidence.
State RICO statute requires prosecution prior to filing of civil claims.
So patsy’s point is??
You got me – this time I’m “confounded” too.
I believe that is true if the vehicle is deemed a total loss and not repaired. In this particular instance, the vehicle was repaired. The parts that were taken by the Progressive representative were parts that were damaged and replacement parts had been bought for the vehicle. There are different reasons for taking the damaged parts – the most common reason is to prevent the body shop from repairing the part and putting it back on instead of replacing the damage (which is usually a less expensive option).
That’s helpful info, scandaljunkie, and I thank you for it. In keeping with my personal policy, though, I inform everybody that your email address includes “progressive.com.”
Scandaljunkie …. the quoted text in your post assumes there has not been a settlement. The insurance company would have no right to take those parts under those facts, imo. This would be even truer (blogsphere word) if the person who owned the parts had rejected the “settlement offer” by the insurance company. Am i missing something here?
Well, I was planning a post based on Hood’s Graveyard Whistling, but I just love the wrecked-truck story. I haven’t heard that one – its soooo – **Little Jimmy Hood **.
Now, on to the post which there have been a bunch of good ones today. I voted for Hood the first time. I would say the reason I didn’t the second time was due to the "too dumb for Scruggs " mess, but that was after the election. It must of been the MCI $14 million mess. Yeah, that was it.
Since I began paying closer attention, I see the last SF stunt as two little boys pissed about being separated. Y’all with kids know what I’m speaking of. It goes like this – "Leave each other alone, no more talking. Do each of you understand. ", "Yes sir. " And then Little Jimmy cant leave well enough alone [Natchez]. Once again, we agree to no more contact, but Little Jimmy can’t walk away without an under-his-breath-mumble [today's Clarion Ledger].
All this has been amusing but my biggest Hood problem is his sloppy criminal-civil approach. The reason, in my non-legal mind, is that it translates to – "if you don’t pay this money (in this case to my friends and $5m to me) I will put you in Jail. Simply put, that’s wrong. Now there has been debate if this is really his method also you can’t leave out BelleSouth’s unexplained blur of the topic. What made my mind up is the following testimony Hood give to Congress. You can watch it on youtube. Seven minutes into clip he says the following;
7:42 – AG Hood
"I have to be careful about giving examples. None of this information came from our grand jury investigation which is still on going as far as other companies involved and in perhaps in this case [SF] and if the settlement doesn’t go through we may be dealing with that in the future. " Then he goes into a rant after that.
Point in case – Here is Hood saying I will put them in jail (via grand jury) if they don’t pay (settlement). That is the problem..
Since I know you’re listening tonight Jimmy. My tip would be – drop the "I’m a Prosecutor " line. It just doesn’t work anymore. I suspect you can get all of the State’s legal affairs handled without it. (thanks to the feds)
Welcome to folo.us, AHiM. Thass quite a debut. (Don’t I remember you from “old folo” too?)
At Home In Mississippi…Great..Great…And Lotus , We have had a wonderful blogging day..I think its been one of the best days ever..
Glad you’ve enjoyed it, mag.
Great post AhiM. I’m not a lawyer, but I would guess if I attempted that scenario (pay me or else) in my line of work, it would be considered extortion…
And, now I’m wondering how much time Hood’s cyber-crime unit spends watching these post too…
Gearhart, I don’t know if you are missing anything or not. I assume we all are missing bits and pieces. While it’s true I work for Progressive – I don’t know anything about the particulars in this claim, but just know that it is not uncommon to take damaged parts when they are being replaced. I stand corrected if there was more going on there than that.
This story is more useful to me than any other that has come out today. It gives the reader an unsealed account of this guy’s M.O. This is a nice piece of reporting by Patsy.
As Grandaddy always said, a little man with a little power is a dangerous thing.
IAG, I still think the story got messed up somehow coming online. If it’s in the paper edition, I’d love to be able to compare the two.
I assume we all are missing bits and pieces.
Alas, we are, scanjun, and they’re some big meaty ones. World enough and time . . .