Polymer Plastics Corp. vs. Hartford Casualty Insurance

As you all know, I received the dreaded jury summons and was placed on the jury for a 3 week trial regarding an insurance claim. Many of you have been asking about the case and what it was about. For 3 weeks I listened to Judge Reed tell us at every single break and at the end of every day "Don't talk about the case. Don't let anyone talk about the case around you. Don't listen to any media reports that may be related to the case or the issues involved. You know what the issues are. Don't make up your mind about the case. I'm sure you all want to be good federal jurors and give both sides a chance to present their case." After reading the verdict and excusing us, Judge Reed finally said, "You may now talk about the case to your heart's content!"

So here goes... The case was between Polymer Plastics Corporation, a plastics manufacturing company in Reno and Hartford Casualty Company. The claim goes back to Dec. 2002 when a wind/rain storm tore off a section of Poly's roof. There was a lot of water damage to Poly's office area (wet computers, telephones, furniture, etc). One would think this would be an open and shut claim.Items were damaged from the storm, insurance pays for those items. I will say right now that there are so many little complex issues that go along with this case that there is no way I could write about everything. Hartford's claims adjuster assigned to the case, Mr Yount, visited the property and told Poly's owner, Mr. Stock, to do what he needed to do to get his business back up and running - submit receipts and Hartford would pay for it. In regards to Business income loss, Mr. Stock felt that they had only lost 5 or 6 sales from that week. (An insurance policy will pay on lost business income during the period of restoration [time it takes to make repairs] look at all these things I've learned!)

6 weeks go by and Stock finally sends Yount some receipts. Yount pays for those items. The roof is still leaking at this point because it is winter and there are continuous rain storms. The roofing company needs 8 dry days to do their work and make the roof watertight. This is where a bunch of he said/she said (or in this case he said/he said) comes into play. Stock says all along sinc the first meeting he's been asking Yount about relocation or getting FEMA trailers to relocate his office. Most of his sales come over the phone, fax or internet and their network is unreliable due to continuing leaks. Stock says Yount was unresponsive. Yount says Stock never asked, if he had, Yount would have made arrangements and paid for trailers - it was covered in the policy. Stock's 1st written request regarding relocation was not until 3/31/03. Meanwhile, Yount is receiveing word from the contractor that the work is just about finished. At the end of April, the contractor confirms that work is complete. Yount says the period of restoration is over, therefore relocation is no longer a factor (and wouldn't be covered at this point.) Stock says the work is still ongoing and the period of restoration is not over. Among other things, his ceiling tiles don't match, and it's a distraction for his employees!

During this time, Stock is finding more damaged personal property and sends a spreadsheet to Yount with his expenses incurred. Yount pays for those items that have supporting documentation or receipts but Stock has included items with no supporting docs. Regarding business income loss, Yount hires an accountant to calculate the business income loss because it is now more than 5 or 6 lost sales. They need financial docs from Stock for the previous year to see how the business was doing before the storm and where they should be at now. Stock doesn't send them. Months go by and despite numerous requests on Hartford's part, no docs are sent. Meanwhile, Stock has hired his own public adjuster to claculate his business income loss. Hartford's accountant comes up with a loss of $57K. Stocks adjuster comes up with a $260K loss. Hartford says to show them suporting documents of their calculations and then they'll pay. They never get it.

During this time, late 2003, Stock sends Yount another spreadsheet listing damaged personal property. Since it's nearly a year after the storm, Yount is required to inspect these items to determine that

1. they are damaged and

2. they are damaged due to the Dec 02 storm.

Yount meets with Stock and his public adjuster and sees some items that are clearly damaged, some items that they agree are NOT damaged and some items that are unaccessible that day. They need more labor to move heavy items, a forklift repair man to determine the nature of the forklifts problems, etc. Yount arranges another inspection with laborers, forklift repairman, etc. Stock cancels the meeting. Yount was never allowed to complete the inspection.

Stock sends a letter to Hartford saying they demand an appraisal. (The insured has a right to an appraisal when the value of items are in dispute.) Yount says the demand is premature because they haven't even determined a value yet because they have not been allowed to complete the inspection. The appraisal is just to determine values but cannot determine cause. Yount suggests doing something to incorporate everything so they can close the case. (This is all being done by letter.) Stock does not respond to Younts letter. Yount sends another letter. No response. Yount sends like 6 letters over the next 6 months and no response each time. In Oct 2004, Stock files a lawsuit against Hartford.

This is REALLY putting everything into a tiny nutshell but to explain everything would take days of writing and I've already wasted enough of my time sitting in the courtroom.

I should note here that Polymer Plastics was having financial problems well before the storm ever occured. They had never turned a profit and were in the hole. Their CA location filed for bankruptcy in 2002. After the storm, they lost their biggest customer because they shipped them damaged products. Their line of credit was frozen due to late payments. They experiened credit holds from their vendors because they were so far behind in paying them. (Here's the kicker - the printable checks they used to pay their bills were soaked in the storm, so Stock had to order new checks. It took the check vendor 6 weeks to send out the new checks, so instead of hand writing checks, Stock just didn't pay his bills! Unbelievable!)

There never would have been a lawsuit if Stock would have simply submitted the receipts requested and the financial documents needed to calculate the business income loss. It also appears that the Public Adjuster Stock hired were full of it and probably gave him some bad advice. Because they were to be paid a percentage of the money given by the insurance company, perhaps they were padding their calculations a bit. It also seems that, while it probably wasn't his intention in the beginning, Stock seemed to develop a case of "deep pocket syndrome," trying to claim items that had nothing to do with the storm.

Stock's public adjuster calculated business income loss from Dec '02 through the present and and then calculated the proposed business income loss into the future until Stocks retirement in 2017 (saying the business income loss now and into the futureis due to the fact that Hartford was not paying them money in a timely manner back in 2003.)

The amount of money Poly was claiming that Hartford owed them was $2.6 million. Our job was to determineif any money was owed, and how much.

We rules that Hartford did not breach their contract or violate any standards of practice & fair dealings or any Nevada laws. We did award Stock $4431, only because an expert witness in public adjusting, provided by Hartford calculated the loss and siad in testimony that Hartford still owed $4431.

If Stock had provided supporting documentation of the $ he felt he was owed, we would have awarded him that money. Of course if he had done this in the beginning like a normal person, there never would have been a trial. We determined that he is an idiot and has no idea how to run his business. I hope Stock learned a lesson in business management. Initally us jurors were worried that we could be responsible for shutting down this man's business and have that on our conscience based on our ruling, but it became clear that since he's been operating in the negative since he opened in 1997, any closure will be brought on by himself.

What I've learned form this experience:

1. Jury duty is not as easy to get out of as everyone thinks.
2. Jury duty can be profitable if you live as far away from the courthouse as I do. I made $101/day.
3. $101/day does not make up for missed family time, 3 hours of driving a day, stress of finding childcare week after week, eating like crap, and having a house that looks like a disaster.
4. There wills always be stupid people in the world that try to take advantage of others.
5. ALWAYS put all of your business dealings in writing.
6. Your company can pull up all of the emails you've written through their network, so for those of us at Wymac always wondering if they could ever pull crap up on us - like the countless emails about an alleged affair between G and R, yeah, they could.


And if you made it through this monster post - I commend you!