DBA Defense Tricks

It’s become clear the  DBA Defense Lawyers use the same  DBA Defense Lawyer Dirty Tricks repeatedly.  Are these tricks thought up by the Insurance Company or the Lawyer and does it matter? The Defense Lawyers are enabling the fraudulent and unethical practices of AIG and CNA.

Maybe by listing them all here the ALJ’s will begin to recognize them and not reward the DBA Defense Lawyers with repeated continuances and ever more chargeable hours.

And maybe some of the plaintiff’s lawyers will stop going along with them.

For those who are not aware your lawyer and the defense lawyer discuss your claim on the phone, make agreements this way, but nothing is documented.  You should demand that all correspondence between your lawyer on your behalf and anyone is else is on paper, documented and that you receive a copy of it.  That in itself would put an end to some of these tricks.

We’ve been forwarded some correspondence between them that would run your blood pretty hot.

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Arrange for a “Settlement Conference” with an ALJ  under the deceitful guise that  you are prepared to settle a claim.  There can be huge travel expenses not to mention the time of the ALJ.  Show up and start off by saying there will be no settlement.  We do not settle War Hazard Claims, that would amount to loaning the government money for the time it takes us to recover it.  This is CNA by the way.

CNA also lies to claimants and their attorneys and ultimately to the ALJ when arranging for a
“Settlement Conference” and saying that the starting figure for negotiations will be at least the highest figure from last time they pulled this bs.  But after everyone goes through the time and expense to travel to this bogus “Settlement Conference” CNA’s Attorney claims he is only authorized to offer a figure much much lower.
We sure hope that someone at the OALJ’s office is getting tired of this expensive scam.

Remember that it only cost the insurance company .24 to .25 percent to withhold funds that they are obligated to pay you for years on end.   The Attorneys are more than happy to waste the taxpayers money.

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Cancel Depositions on the injured contractors neurologist or other doctor important to the claim.  Then whine to the ALJ that they don’t have the depositions they need for the the hearing.

When the injured contractors lawyer arranges a deposition on the same doctor the defense lawyer takes it upon himself to cancel that too.  This is a true and recent story.

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Arrange a Defense Medical Examination for an injured contractor but cancel it without telling them.  Injured Contractor shows up for appointment that doesn’t exist.   Defense Lawyer claims that injured contractor refused to attend the Defense Medical Examination.

Arrange Defense Medical Examination without consulting injured contractor as to availability, refuse to change the date, then tell the judge the injured contractor failed to show up for DME.

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Refer to a Defense Medical Examination as an Independent Medical Examination.

The insurance company is entitled to have an injured contractor see a doctor of their choice, within reason, but these examinations could never be considered Independent.  Only the DoL can arrange for an Independent Medical Examination and there are strict guidelines to follow when they do this.  No hired guns.

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Claim they want to settle with an injured contractor, make an offer, walk away from the table.   Do it again.  This adds months and months of delays to the process.

Come to an agreement with an injured contractors  lawyer for XX a month and medical for life.  Write it up full of mistakes and ommissions (like the medical for life) which would be extremely detrimental to the injured contractor.  Send it to the injured contractors lawyer, who he is pretty sure won’t bother to read it, and he doesn’t.

Then claim to the DoL that the injured contractor would not negotiate.

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Make sure that all paperwork  to the DoL gives the appearance that the injured contractor is not being cooperative and anything else negative .  This may seem benign but it is direct reflection on you and your credibility.

This is very easy to do when the injured contractor does not see any of this paperwork.

Once you’ve been to a  hearing your claim file is an important part of the Judges decision making process and you will not be there to defend yourself.

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Don’t pay the bills to the doctors that you authorized.   It looks like you’ve complied but the doctors get tired of not being paid and will not see the injured, nor will they take on other DBA Casualties.

These unpaid medical bills all go on the injured contractors credit report.  In the case of Landstuhl and Walter Reed bills they show up as a serious delinquency to the Dept of Treasury.
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