Inflated auto-insurance claims? Morgan & Morgan, Dan Newlin deny State Farm allegations [View all]
Last edited Sun May 27, 2012, 10:58 AM - Edit history (1)
I know many of you don't want to hear it, but I suggest you remain informed. As much as I don't care for M&M I thought this article was relevant because John Morgan is a major Central Florida contributor to the Obama campaign. He is not listed or involved in this lawsuit, but the lawyer was working for him during the time in question (2007-2011) My hope is that the lawyer turns out to be Republican and that this experience will encourage M&M to clean out some of those political Republican hires: Here's the article:
One of Central Florida's best-known law firms and a prominent Brevard County surgeon may have had an "across-the-board agreement" in recent years to inflate by millions of dollars the charges for spinal surgeries in auto-accident claims, according to insurance-company allegations that have sprung unexpectedly from a pair of routine personal-injury lawsuits.
Central to the allegations: Orlando-based Morgan & Morgan, which considers itself the nation's largest personal-injury law firm; Dan Newlin, a 10-year Morgan & Morgan lawyer who left the firm late last year to open his own office; Dr. Ara Deukmedjian, president of the Brevard County Medical Society and a volunteer assistant professor of neurosurgery at the University of Central Florida School of Medicine; and State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co., the nation's largest auto insurer.
The two lawsuits, filed by Morgan & Morgan against State Farm auto policies, are each in evidence-gathering phases and months away from possible trials. But they became superheated last fall when a former paralegal at the law firm turned whistle-blower, providing State Farm with ammunition to probe Deukmedjian's billing practices with Morgan & Morgan from 2007 to 2011.
As a result, the insurance company is building a case — "quite aggressively," a federal judge has observed — that Deukmedjian was charging "exorbitant amounts" for surgeries performed on auto-accident clients. It alleges that Deukmedjian's bills were then incorporated into lawsuits filed by Morgan & Morgan lawyers as they sought to win payouts from State Farm, but that Deukmedjian then accepted, under a prearranged agreement, significantly less than his original charge, as long as Morgan & Morgan sent more clients to his Deuk Spine Institute.
http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2012-05-27/business/os-auto-insurance-inflated-claims-20120527_1_state-farm-morgan-morgan-firm
= new reply since forum marked as read