Matthew and Marcia Seebachan, the couple suing a Dallas body shop for allegedly botching a roof repair on their vehicle, have dropped a related lawsuit against State Farm.
The Seebachans provided no explanation for their request to have the case dismissed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas.
The move comes only two weeks after the Seebachans’ attorney, Todd Tracy, filed the lawsuit, which proclaimed that State Farm was “a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde creature that turns into the ‘neighbor from hell.’”
“State Farm secretly and covertly plays Russian Roulette with its customers and the public by forcing body shops to choose their profits over the safety of the motoring public,” Tracy said in a news release announcing the filing of the lawsuit in early August.
The lawsuit alleged that State Farm strong-armed John Eagle Collision Center into using an adhesive to replace the hail-damaged roof of the Seebachans’ 2010 Honda Fit before they owned it. Honda’s repair specifications call for the roof to be welded.
The shoddy repair exacerbated their injuries when the Seebachans were involved in a 2013 collision, the couple alleged in the State Farm lawsuit and contends in a separate lawsuit against John Eagle Collision Center of Dallas.
The John Eagle lawsuit includes some unflattering testimony from Boyce Willis, the body shop director, who asserted that the shop’s repair procedures are “guided by insurance.”
“So … if you brought your car into my shop, right, the insurance company’s going to dictate what – how we’re going to repair your car,” Willis said in a deposition.
Tracy responded by asking: “[A]s a certified body shop … the insurance company cannot trump the OEM specifications, correct, sir?”
“Yes, they can,” Willis answered. “By not paying the bill.”