The Eaves Law Firm has filed a request to consolidate all the recent suits filed by different states against multiple insurers for short pays, tortious interference and other offenses to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi for "coordinated or consolidated pretrial proceedings."
“Multidistrict litigation brings all these cases together for pre-trial
handling,” explained Allison Fry, attorney with Eaves Law Firm. “We are
looking for uniformity to bring identical cases to put before one
judge.”
The complaint at the heart of this action was filed Jan. 7, 2014, in the U.S. District Court of Mississippi, Northern Division-Jackson for the state of Mississippi.The goal was to prevent State Farm from forcing shops in that state to use PartsTrader, and also to recover monies for short pays and procedures not paid for by insurers who "unjustly enriched themselves." Defendants named included: State Farm; Progressive; Allstate; Nationwide; GEICO; United Services Automobile Association; USAA; Safeco; Shelter Mutual Insurance Co.; Direct General Insurance Company of Mississippi; Mississippi Farm Bureau; and Shelter General.
Since then, five states – Mississippi, Florida, Utah, Tennessee and Indiana – have gotten involved in the action and the call for the multi-district litigation.
The filing read, “Since January 2014, five essentially identical causes of action have been filed on behalf of plaintiff auto body shops against numerous automobile insurers relating to the insurers’ intentional refusal to fully and fairly compensate Plaintiffs for all work performed in repairing vehicles for which the defendants are responsible for payment, improperly and intentionally suppressing labor rates, steering and violations of the Sherman Antitrust Act. The actions have been brought by numerous plaintiffs and are presently pending before five different district courts in different states (Mississippi, Tennessee, Utah, Florida and Indiana.)"
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