Co-Cure: RES,NOT: PWC wins disability claim: 60 million dollar

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Fri, 4 Jul 2008 17:41:38 +0200

" Dr. Marc-Alexander Fluks " <fluks

RES,NOT: PWC wins disability claim: 60 million dollar

 

Source: Bloomberg News

July 4, 2008

Author: Liane Kufchock

URL:

_http://www.telegram.com/article/20080704/NEWS/807040318/1002/BUSINESS_

(http://www.telegram.com/article/20080704/NEWS/807040318/1002/BUSINESS)

 

 

Unum's appeal backfires in Nevada - Jury says $60M must be paid

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Unum Group and its Worcester-based Paul Revere Life Insurance Co. were

ordered by a Nevada jury to pay $60 million after appealing a 2004 verdict

of $11.6 million to a venture capitalist who sued over the denial of a

disability claim, said a lawyer representing the plaintiff.

 

A six-member jury reconsidered the evidence and decided June 26 that the

punitive damages should be six times what the first jury ordered, lawyer

Rick Friedman said.

 

Clinton Merrick, a former venture capitalist, alleged that the companies

cut off benefit payments a year after he submitted a disability claim with

a diagnosis of Lyme disease and chronic fatigue syndrome, Friedman said

yesterday in a phone interview. An appellate court upheld the $1.6 million

in compensatory damages that Merrick won in the 2004 trial and the retrial

focused only on punitive damages.

 

'This company has been subjected to unprecedented scrutiny from the

courts, the media, and government regulators, all of whom have found it

improperly handled claims,' Friedman said. 'The verdicts are going to

keep on coming until it changes its ways.'

 

Jurors ordered Chattanooga, Tenn.-based Unum, which was in the process of

acquiring Paul Revere when the claim was denied, to pay $36 million. The

jury said Paul Revere should pay $24 million.

 

Unum will appeal to the 9th U.S. Circuit of Appeals, spokeswoman Mary Clarke

Guenther said yesterday in a phone interview. 'We do not believe the verdict

will be sustained,' she said.

 

Unum rose 7 cents to close at $20.93 in New York Stock Exchange composite

trading. Shares have fallen 12 percent this year and the company is valued at

$7.25 billion. The case is Merrick v. Paul Revere Life Insurance Co. and

UnumProvident Corp., 00-0731, U.S. District Court, District of Nevada (Las

Vegas).

 

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© 2008 Bloomberg News

 

 

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