The civil jury system in our country has been under constant siege over the past several years. A carefully planned and orchestrated attack by The American Tort Reform Association has been carried out with great skill and precision. Over the past 10 years, the term tort reform became a political buzzword that most Americans really didn’t understand but bought into due to the constant bombardment with propaganda. By constantly hammering home their themes of “frivolous lawsuits,” “greedy trial lawyers,” “runaway juries,” and “jackpot justice,” the masterminds of the attack chipped away at the very institution of the civil jury in America.

Alabama politics are still done the old-fashioned, Southern way with enough gentility to cover the cold steel.

Meaningful discovery in the consumer fraud case begins with the initial discovery filed with the complaint, along with deposition notices of those persons that the plaintiff’s attorney wishes to depose once he has received all of his responses to request for production and responses to interrogatories. Every consumer fraud case should have a discovery plan, and that plan must begin with the initial filing of discovery with the complaint. This initial discovery will set the tone of the case, and in particular, it will set the tone of discovery being conducted in the case.

Life Insurance class actions have been prevalent over the past years. These class actions have included the theories of improper market conduct (vanishing premium, replacement, and retirement/investment cases), race based premiums and modal fees. Several life insurance companies have agreed to settle class actions under these theories, including New York Life Insurance Company, Franklin Life Insurance Company, American General Life Insurance Company, Principal Mutual Life Insurance Company, Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company, Jefferson-Pilot Life Insurance Company and Life of Virginia. Beasley Allen has been involved in these class actions in that we represented individuals who chose to exclude themselves from the class action settlement, commonly referred to as “opt-outs.” In fact, our firm represented a majority of the opt-outs in several of the aforementioned class action settlements. However, we expect these “market conduct” class action settlements to decline in the future because most life insurance companies, with the exception of Guardian Life Insurance Company and Mutual of New York Life Insurance Company for instance, have settled the vanishing premium type class actions and individual opt-outs, thereby effectively putting an end to these cases.

Prior to May 13, 1994, those who practiced in the area of insurance fraud law found the law to be in a state of flux. There was a line of cases in Alabama that stated in the insurance fraud case when fraudulent conduct had been discovered by a Plaintiff, but between the time of purchase and the time of discovery no claims were made on the insurance policy in question, no cause of action for fraud would arise because the period of time had past without the Plaintiff having made a claim. These cases stood for the principle that you must have made a claim and have incurred damages in order for a fraud case to exist.