State Farm case filings skyrocket in Arkansas and the U.S.

I've got a couple of underinsured motorist ("UIM") cases pending against State Farm. One of the allegations in the cases is that State Farm denied my clients' claims because they were following a national policy to force claims into court.

Several books have been published about how insurance companies aggressively revamped their claims departments for maximum profit in the mid 1990's, which was a shift away from fairly paying claims. One such book is called Delay, Deny, Defend. The documents showing how this shift was designed call it a "zero sum game," meaning that where the insurance companies win, the insured people must lose. Of course, artificially lowering claim payouts regardless of merit is bad faith on an institutional level.

In connection with my cases, I've done some research on lawsuits involving State Farm in state courts in Arkansas and in federal courts around the country. Here's the chart of the number of State Farm cases in Arkansas over the past 20 years:  

 The trend holds true generally for national cases involving State Farm:

This case filing information is proof that State Farm has ramped up its litigation department in keeping with the delay, deny, defend strategy used by State Farm and other insurance companies.

These are just cases where State Farm was a named party. State Farm is involved in vastly more cases where State Farm stays in the shadows and defends cases against people who caused accidents. It's difficult to determine which insurance companies are involved in these types of cases, since the Arkansas Administrative Office of the Courts and its federal counterpart, Pacer, don't keep track of the identity of insurance companies in these "third party" cases. This prevents the public from identifying trends about which insurance companies are bogging down court systems across the country.

It sure seems like we need to change our laws to shine more light on these insurance company tactics. At the Chaney Law Firm, we fight to expose bad faith insurance tactics, one case at a time.

Enabling mcrypt for PHP

When working on database-intensive projects, like Intelection, I sometimes use phpMyAdmin. It's capable of using mcrypt, which is cryptographic software. However, after upgrading to Mac OS X Mavericks, my mcrypt installation was broken. I kept getting an error on printed SQL reports, and the following image would appear on each screen:

Here's how to fix it. First, install command line developer tools so that the proper PHP libraries are in place. Use this command:

xcode-select --install

Then, download and install autoconf, which is required to install the PHP extension for mcrypt:

cd /tmp
curl -O http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/autoconf/autoconf-latest.tar.gz
tar -zxvf autoconf-latest.tar.gz
cd autoconf-2.69/
./configure --prefix=/usr/local
make
sudo make install

Next, install libmcrypt. You can download it from sourceforge.net here. Use these commands to install:

cd /tmp
mv ~/Downloads/libmcrypt-2.5.8.tar.gz ./
tar -zxvf libmcrypt-2.5.8.tar.gz 
cd libmcrypt-2.5.8
./configure
make
sudo make install

The next step is to install the PHP mcrypt extension. In order to do that, you'll need to download the correct PHP that you have installed on your system. To figure this out, run these commands:

which php --(mine showed /usr/bin/php)
/usr/bin/php -v

Go to PHP's historical website and download the correct version. Mine's 5.4.17. Then, install the extension:

cd /tmp
mv ~/Downloads/php-5.4.17.tar.gz ./
tar -zxvf php-5.4.17.tar.gz
cd php-5.4.17/ext/mcrypt/
phpize
./configure
make
sudo make install

Next, PHP must be configured to use the mycrpt extension. This is done by editing the php.ini file, as follows:

sudo vi /etc/php.ini

Use the following regular expression in vim to find the extension part of the file:

:/^;extension

Add this line to the file:

extension = mcrypt.so

Finally, restart the web server to commit the changes:

sudo apachectl restart

With that, mcrypt is working properly again with phpMyAdmin.

Avoid wrecks with awareness of motion induced blindness

I was copied on an email thread recently about motion-induced blindness (MIB). That's a phenomenon where moving objects in an observer's peripheral vision can disappear. Researchers think this can cause motor vehicle collisions when a driver simply can't see someone approaching from the side. Awareness here is key: one can avoid MIB by not simply staring in front of the car, but rather shifting one's gaze every few seconds. We've all heard from driver's ed that you should check your mirrors every few seconds, and that helps avoid MIB as well.

Source: Wikipedia

Here's the entire email thread:

SOMETHING DRIVERS NEED TO BE AWARE OF: MOTION-INDUCED BLINDNESS
 
In a motor accident, where a speeding car hits a slower moving vehicle coming from the side, the speeding car driver often swear that they just didn’t see the vehicle coming from the left or right. Well, they aren’t lying. They really don’t see the vehicle coming from the side, in spite of broad daylight.
 
This phenomenon on the car drivers’ part is known as “Motion-Induced Blindness.” It is definitely frightening and explained at the website noted below.
 
Once airborne, pilots are taught to alternate their gaze between scanning the horizon and scanning their instrument panel, and never to fix their gaze for more than a couple of seconds on any single object. They are taught to continually keep their heads on a swivel and their eyes always moving. Because, if you fix your gaze on one object long enough while you yourself are in motion, your peripheral vision goes blind.
 
‘Till about three decades ago, this “heads on swivel & eyes moving” technique was the only way to spot other aircraft in the skies around. Now days they have on-board radars, but the old technique still holds good.
 
Just click on the link below for a small demonstration of motion-induced blindness. You will see a revolving array of blue crosses on a black background. There is a flashing green dot in the centre and three fixed yellow dots around it. If you fix your gaze on the green dot for more than a few seconds, the yellow dots will disappear at random, either singly, or in pairs, or all three together.
 
In reality, the yellow dots are always there - just move your focus to see them.
 
Just watch the yellow dots for some time to ensure that they don’t go anywhere!

       http://www.msf-usa.org/motion.html
 
So, if you are driving at a high speed on a highway, and if you fix your gaze on the road straight ahead for not very long, you will not see a car, a scooter, a buggy, a bicycle, a buffalo or even a human being approaching from the side.
 
NOW REVERSE THE SITUATION. If you are crossing a road on foot and you see a speeding car approaching, there’s a 90% chance that the driver isn’t seeing you, because his/her peripheral vision may be blind. And you may be in that blind zone!

Clark County wet/dry petition map using Intelection

I've done several posts lately on local option elections (also called wet/dry elections). It's time for another, as I've been working on the patent application for my electioneering software, Intelection. First things first, the graphic:

View fullsize

This shows all the people who signed the wet/dry petition in Clark County in 2010. The address data is more recent than that, and as you can see some folks have moved away from Clark County since the election. 

One of the benefits of the Intelection software is tracking petition drives. Intelection helps answer questions like:

• Is this person eligible to sign the petition?
• Has this person already signed the petition?
• How many people have signed the petition?

Let me know if Intelection and I can help you with a local option petition drive. 

2013 mostly wet (with a dab of dry) election in the books

The Park Hill neighborhood in North Little Rock voted overwhelmingly to lift a 50-year-old ban on alcohol sales in the neighborhood. It was formerly a small pocket of dry districts in an otherwise wet county. As reported by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (warning: pay wall), 607 people voted wet to just 107 people who voted dry. That's 85% to 15%, for a whopping 70% margin.

Most people weren't aware of this, but districts within a wet county can call a special election on several alcohol-related topics. Individual voting districts can vote dry (or back wet, like Park Hill). 

In contrast, countywide wet-or-dry elections must take place on Election Day in November in even-numbered years. However, because the Park Hill election wasn't a countywide issue, it could be placed on the ballot during a special election after a petition drive by sponsors.

In some places, like Clark, Boone, and Madison Counties that recently voted wet, city boards and even quorum courts can call a special "mixed drink" election. The local option laws require this separate election. Voters get to decide whether restaurants can sell mixed drinks and liquor without a private club license during normal operating hours. The legislature considered removing the mixed drink special election in 2011, but it narrowly failed in the State Senate.

Private club licenses are a burden. The mixed drink election law puts businesses in places like Clark County at a disadvantage because the costs are much higher. Two examples: first, the private club license is more expensive. Second, restaurants cannot buy liquor directly from wholesalers. Third, the paperwork requirements are much higher, as private clubs require an Arkansas non-profit corporation in existence for at least a year and a roll of at least 100 members. These regulations scare many folks out of trying to serve liquor.

You may remember that Benton County voted wet in 2012. Their legislators lobbied for and received an exemption from the mixed drink election law. The new law permits counties (and towns within those counties) having more than 100 private clubs as of the November 2012 election to authorize mixed drink sales by ordinance, rather than a special election.

I understand having private club licenses if you want to stay open until 5am or have a bar in a dry county — these matters create added enforcement pressure on the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board and local cops. But simply adding different kinds of drinks to an existing restaurant that doesn't stay open terribly late creates no such burden.

Our private club laws are behind the times. Since getting rid of private clubs in 2009, even Utah (home of the Mormon Church) has more reasonable alcohol laws than we do here in Arkansas. It's time to get rid of the wet/dry two-step.

In the meantime, if you're interested in any type of wet/dry, mixed drink, or other local option election, please give me a call or check out our blog posts on the topic.