STATE FARM MUT. AUTOMOBILE INS. CO.V. CAMPBELL

STATE FARM MUT. AUTOMOBILE INS. CO.V. CAMPBELL: "Evidence the jury could credit demonstrated that the PP&R program regularly and adversely affected Utah residents. Ray Summers, “the adjuster who handled the Campbell case and who was a State Farm employee in Utah for almost twenty years,” described several methods used by State Farm to deny claimants fair benefits, for example, “falsifying or withholding of evidence in claim files.” Id., at 121a. A common tactic, Summers recounted, was to “unjustly attac[k] the character, reputation and credibility of a claimant and mak[e] notations to that effect in the claim file to create prejudice in the event the claim ever came before a jury.” Id., at 130a (internal quotation marks omitted). State Farm manager Bob Noxon, Summers testified, resorted to a tactic of this order in the Campbell case when he “instruct[ed] Summers to write in the file that Todd Ospital (who was killed in the accident) was speeding because he was on his way to see a pregnant girlfriend.” Ibid. In truth, “[t]here was no pregnant girlfriend.” Ibid. Expert testimony noted by the trial court described these tactics as “completely improper.”"

(click link for complete article)