North Carolina’s insurance commissioner announced his department will again offer webinars, starting this month, on the intricacies of flood insurance, with continuing education credit for insurance agents, adjusters, engineers, real estate agents and others.
The WebEx sessions are free of charge and will delve into the National Flood Insurance Program as well as state-based flood programs. The need for more flood coverage in the state became painfully obvious after Hurricane Helene and other storms “devastated thousands of residents who didn’t have flood insurance because they relied on their homeowners’ policy, which does not cover damage from rising water,” Commissioner Mike Causey said in a statement.
The conferences will feature flood insurance specialist Charlotte Hicks, of the North Carolina Department of Public Safety/Emergency Management, and Federal Emergency Management Agency officials who will discuss the modernization of flood maps and other topics.
- Registration for the first two sessions, May 28 and July 16, is already full.
- Thursday, Sept. 10, 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.. To register, click here by Sept. 6
- Thursday, Oct. 15, 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. To register, click here by Oct. 11.
A federal judge in Pennsylvania has given the green light to a racketeering lawsuit by Uber Technologies, Inc. and Federal Express Corp. alleging that a Philadelphia law firm and a group of medical providers conspired to create false medical records and inflate injury claims related to motor vehicle accidents involving their drivers.
Justice Mark Kearney of the U.S. District Court for Eastern Pennsylvania found that the two transportation firms provided ample facts and enough detailed allegations at this stage to allow the court to infer a plausible basis for their varied racketeering claims. Consequently. he denied a motion to dismiss the case brought by the lawyers and doctors.
The case came about after Uber and FedEx said they became frustrated with paying lawyers to defend and settle lawsuits brought against them by one local law firm on behalf of persons claiming Uber or FedEx drivers caused them severe personal injuries over the past few years. Philadelphia lawyer Marc Simon and the law firm Simon & Simon, P.C. filed dozens of lawsuits in the last four years in Philadelphia County against both of the firms on behalf of persons involved in motor vehicle accidents with their drivers.
Uber and FedEx claim Simon and his firm direct their new clients to chiropractors, pain specialists, and other medical professionals — “a conveyor belt of preselected treatment providers and medical experts”— who in turn create fraudulent medical records for those clients. They maintain that the records have served as a basis to sue in Philadelphia state court, seek more than $50,000 in damages, and then persuade Uber’s and FedEx’s lawyers and risk evaluators to defend the claims or pay more in settlements.
In addition to disputing each claim in the Philadelphia courts, Uber and FedEx are suing the lawyers suing them and the treating medical professionals for racketeering activities. Uber and FedEx seek to recover the costs defending the underlying Philadelphia court cases and other losses, and removal of the law firm’s management.
In asking the court to dismiss the case, the lawyers and doctors first argued that their conduct is immune from liability because they are acting as advocates consistent with their clients’ right to petition the courts for personal injury recovery under the First Amendment’s Petition Clause. The judge disagreed that the Petition Clause immunity bars the claims at this stage as the court cannot say now whether Uber and FedEx will prove a fraudulent scheme not immunized from suit.
The court found that Uber and FedEx sufficiently pleaded that the lawyers directed the doctors to produce fraudulent medical records which informed their demands for compensation far beyond the actual injuries.