Judge Awards $7.8 Million in Insurance Suit
NEWS ARTICLE EXCERPT
By: Rick Bundrett ,The State (Columbia, SC), January 13, 2009
A federal judge has awarded $7.8 million to a group of mostly state employees who claimed two insurance companies cheated them out of payments related to their cancer treatments.
The award to the 182 plaintiffs in the class-action case is being appealed to the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., said Columbia attorney Dick Harpootlian, one of the plaintiffs' attorneys.
Six plaintiffs have died in the last year, he said.
"That's the real shame," Harpootlian said when contacted Monday. "They paid their premiums for the benefit, and they're not getting it."
The two insurance companies that were sued - Dixie National Life Insurance Company and National Foundation Life Insurance Company - have been represented on appeal by famed attorney Kenneth W. Starr, who works for the Kirkland & Ellis law firm in Los Angeles.
Starr is best known for heading an investigation in the 1990s into sexual misconduct by former President Bill Clinton. The investigation into the Monica Lewinsky scandal eventually led the U.S. House to impeach the Democratic president, though the U.S. Senate acquitted him of the charges, allowing him to remain in office.
Harpootlian, a former state Democratic Party chairman who has been active in national party activities, declined comment on Starr's connection to the case. Efforts Monday to reach Starr were unsuccessful.
The plaintiff in court papers contended that under supplemental insurance policies with the two defendant companies, they were supposed to receive payment for "actual" charges made by their medical providers.
Their policies were different from "stopgap" supplemental policies that typically pay the difference between amounts reimbursed by primary insurers and charges billed by the providers, Harpootlian said.
Instead, their policies were designed to pay for other types of expenses related to their cancer treatment, such as hotel costs, reimbursement for lost wages or additional nursing care, he said.
"It's really a poor man's disability policy," Harpootlian said. "We're talking about state employees. They're not zillionaires."
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