company which was filed a class action case proceeded through quite a long history of discovery and then through a jury trial and on the second day of jury evidence in this case to go to the jury on leveraging i think they can argue reasonably from the pfaff's that there was leverage in the seiko was making an effort there's the evidence that came from the people say oh they conceded in testimony and i think arguably from the evidence that they weren't about to pay the advance on the medicals unless she gave up those things listed in the exhibit they attempted to commit a violation of the statute that was before you or the evidence that was at the close of the plaintiff's case in chief and that was ok during discussion on the motion of whether or not he was going to dismiss the single claim of punitive damages not the case in its entirety there was a short break and he insurance policy statute which requires everybody to cover a minimum amount of insurance we also have what's called the unfair trade practices act which were choir's insurers to do  of subsection thirteen requires them essentially not to leverage it says that they must not fail to promptly settle claims of liability has become reasonably clear under one portion of the insurance policy coverage in order to influence settlements under other portions of the insurance policy coverage now in one thousand nine hundred seven the montana supreme cape court came out with a decision called the r decision in really the supreme court said that if liability is reasonably clear because that is a prerequisite for both the good faith requirement under six and subsection thirteen as long as  it yes the medical bills in this case are broken down into the ones that have leverage for what was a short period of time off their leverage for that period of time they withheld the money they tried to make the sign form she refused and so they gave in but not dispute going that they had the treating physician the chiropractor their own nurse case manager and their own physician tell him that they were caused by the adjuster claims she has a dispute she has no basis for that cannot tempt to leverage it's like attempting to speak very or doing it or you're not clearly in this case a call was leverage if they were leveraging in the beginning and gave in when you actually made him and on some of the medical bills they maintained their position no matter how many doctors told them including doctors they hired to pay those bills that they were going to do it the reason why they did it is because the evidence at trial underscored that this really should be a class action they in response to really win out and asked for three legal opinions can we if we're going to comply with really demands from concessions three of the letters all three of the firms responded to the first told them absolutely not you cannot do this that is an unequivocal duty in the supreme court made that clear so they threw those two opinions away and they held a meeting in spokane and they had sort of a implemented on net i on a company wide basis and not just say pro national the motion to amend for the class claims included all of the companies that were adjusted out of that office including american american states and punitive damages was raised he asked a fairly pointed question because it really was the issue he says this i think you have enough evidence in the record to get a question of leveraging this leveraging know that's not true and that evidence came out of trial because she was gone and so her supervisor wrote down on a piece of paper and it's part of exhibit five hundred how she was going to value the case and she wrote each line item down to the amount of the settlement offer agree to take the sum of money and you're regardless of whether they follow the law or not they're going to give up the claim in or turn for a lump sum money when they say craft fair and equitable and attempting to do it that means it has to be timely make money and they stuck to their guns even with the attorneys involved in this case and the evidence showed a trial that they clearly did create an industry wide practice for their group of insurance companies what are her the injuries are really minor what if we're talking about a few hundred dollars and the quote out really is medical expenses for even minor injuries in the devastating to a family of average income and i think the evidence the trial is clear she was not somebody even average income and the inability to them what it does that affect your credit and it was evidence that it did that in this case it affects your ability naturally to get ongoing treatment because as soon as the doctors aren't being paid what we know is how much the medical expenses cost given to attempt in good faith to effectuate proffer an equitable settlement now doesn't always reiterate and he says it repeatedly that clearly they were attempting to leverage and they're attempting to do that a when insurers try to leverage especially medical bills they know that it's going to have a harmful fact the reality is and i think it's consistent with all people that are trying to get medical treatment when the bills aren't paid in  value the general damages their had to advance some proof especially damages and there were the unpaid medical bills and some proof of general damage and she talked about how it affected her the credit she gave evidence of that yes on all of the others the real issues because there are five issues free for the court does she get a chance to have a jury value her damages both the special prove the trial and the general and is this a case for class certification and it's our position that that evidence at trial really underscored how widespread this practice was or the like but that it was widespread which was in our history in my the insurance company so we think that we would request that  there was it was a very low impact accidents it was a report from an accident reconstructionist that said that the impact could at most the like and to someone sitting down hard in a chair there were photographs that showed believe that her subject of complaints not her objective symptoms and that her demeanor changed after she hired an attorney and someone told her that she had with french there was also a nurse review of the file the chiropractors that there is no evidence that they failed to pay any part of the crime under one portion to influence settlement under the rast they paid the portion of advanced math there was no further discussion of the form at any resulted in the provision of other medical records it resulted in an evaluation and within six months the entire client was settled for twelve thousand dollars and the evidence that is in the cour adequacy of representation the discovery results that were reached in this case indicated that at most in addition to mr gatt there were three other definite leveraging had been used whether the method was a proper or improper or whether the individual had cause ation disputes or did not have conservation disputes what the individual's medical history was what the treatment history was what the expenses were what damages if any was suffered as a result of the leveraging that commonality could not in that i would interpret that and in several ways your honor number one it was stated during the argument on the rule fifty directed verdict motion the judge was engaging counsel and conversation and i would view it in one hand as being out assuming there was an attempt to leveraging or i think there's enough evidence to go to the issue of leveraging because they attempted to use this form when he went back into chambers and took a recess looked at the evidence that he maintains on real time occurred was nothing made known to safeco at that time sake or had no knowledge that she was under any sort of financial to rast when it took its recorded statement from her two weeks following actual fraud and in this case there was no evidence of actual malice or actual fraud conclusion your honor we believe that the evidence in this case i does not support an unfair trade practices act violation of the the would like to respond one question that you asked earlier on judge pool and that's with respect to whether the judge changed his mind when the judgment or changed his mind from the time he made this statement and the other statements that he made that we've cited in our brief when he came back and delivered his answer his opinion and i would say no he did not change his mind on the facts but he did was change his mind on how they applied to the law and i would ask you to take a look not to just trust hughes finding a fax but take a look at the transcript because it's just malloy and you'll find the same thing when you read the transcript does malloy found that there is evidence that came from the people  transcript but he was looking or he was thinking about all the testimony of the safeco people up to that time and that's when they when they first made the proposal that's correct that's correct and that's why that this case was about one piece of paper sent to one poor single mother in a small town in montana it was not about that i would direct the court's attention  our brief in support of motion for class certification which is part of the record we filed on november fifteenth one nine hundred ninety nine after we had done a good bit of discovery and we found that safe colin enter into a course of seeing how they could get around really with respect to everybody in montana the form the one piece of paper was one example that let's assume that we rule for you that the verdict should not think that so what if they had one that said where's the malice i think when you look at the testimony from their officials about the meetings in spokane where they were coming up with this plan i think that's where we find the malice i would just say oh here fifteen seconds left i would ask you to consider very carefully the class certification and the way that it was planned and the way that the apple eased purportedly look for whether or not there by electronic discovery they've used this computer system called compass and they posted this form on campus and gave everybody access to it we have testimony and that's where i was citing to in our brief on class certification we have testimony that was placed it was a vailable for anyone to use we have conflicting testimony from their own people about how many times it was used whether the form was ever sent back whether they did other manifestations or was a letter that was similar to the form they contain the same elements that they sent to some people but we have on the record that they did a main you will search of paper and found for just seven