Nathan teaches class on victory in recent appeal

Nathan Chaney taught a CLE hosted by the Arkansas Trial Lawyers Association last Friday. The theme of the day of CLE was insurance coverage issues, and Nathan taught about his recent appeal in which he disqualified a lawyer employed by an insurance company.

The seminar followed the format of the one Nathan gave last summer to the Arkanas Bar Association. However, this seminar focused more on the fallout surrounding the disqualification of the Farmers Insurance Company lawyer (you can download the presentation here). Essentially, Farmers will have to fulfill its bargain with its policyholders by hiring independent lawyers to represent them. Furthermore, Farmers may have defaulted its policyholders on many cases in which its employee-attorneys answered lawsuits. Fortunately, Farmers alone will be the responsibility of taking this calculated risk, not the policyholders.

One question at the CLE was, “why do you care what the insurance companies do? After all, wouldn’t it be better for an plaintiff’s lawyer to have a 9-to-5 in-house lawyer on the other side, rather than a skilled lawyer in a big firm?” My answer to that question was this: all people who have a contractual right to a lawyer deserve skilled representation given with undivided loyalty. If I get sued, I want the best lawyer my insurance company can find to represent me — don’t we all feel that way?

We, as lawyers, take an oath to uphold the justice system. And at the heart of our justice system are lawyers who exercise independent, professional judgment. Here at the Chaney Law Firm, we take our oath seriously, even when it’s inconvenient. That’s why we objected to Farmers appointing its own lawyer, and that’s why I gave a CLE on the topic last week.

Update on America Invents Act of 2011

In a rare showing of bipartisanship, the Senate passed the America Invents Act last week. Since I last reported on the Act (when it had a different name), I sent a letter to my congressional team containing the analysis I shared here several weeks ago. Before the Senate’s vote last week, I was honored to receive a call from Senator Boozeman’s office requesting my input on several provisions in the Act. His office told me only two patent attorneys in the state wrote to the Senator to comment on the Act, and his staff appreciated the help in understanding the sometimes-esoteric patent laws.

Chaneys win appeal in Arkansas Supreme Court

We’ve written several times about our ongoing case involving an insurance company trying to represent its customers using employee-attorneys. We’re very pleased to announce that the Arkansas Supreme Court published its decision recently, and the Chaneys scored a complete win.

Our client was hit by a negligent driver. Farmers Insurance Company hired a well-known defense firm to represent the negligent driver. After about four months, however, Farmers tried to substitute its own in-house, employee-attorney into the case to represent the negligent driver. At that time, Nathan Chaney opposed this substitution on the grounds that it was illegal and unethical.

The Arkansas Supreme Court sided with Nathan’s argument. The Court applied an Arkansas statute that has been on the books for over 50 years. According to the statute, what Farmers was trying to do is the unauthorized practice of law. While Farmers’ lawyer challenged the constitutionality of the statute, it was upheld on appeal. Farmers also claimed that our firm could not raise this issue, but the Court summarily rejected that argument.

The Court’s decision was split 4–3 (our Supreme Court only has 7 justices). The remaining 3 justices would have held the statute unconstitutional because only the Arkansas Supreme Court can govern the practice of law in our state. However, those 3 justices also sided with our argument, since they held in a concurring opinion that “[a]n attorney may not serve two masters” because the attorney’s loyalties would be divided. A lawyer’s client has the right to undivided fidelity from the lawyer, and a corporation cannot provide the required loyalty. However, the Court reserved its strongest language for the divergent interests an insured and his insurance company have:

Further, an insurance carrier, for example, is a business and is naturally concerned with profits and retaining as much of the insurance premiums as possible, which translates in a lawsuit into a desire to pay as little in fees, costs, and judgments as possible. The insured’s interests are not the same as the insurance company’s, and those interests may vary greatly.

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The relation of an attorney to his client is pre-eminently confidential. It demands on the part of the attorney undivided allegiance, a conspicuous degree of faithfulness and disinterestedness, absolute integrity and utter renunciation of every personal advantage conflicting in any way directly or indirectly with the interest of his client.

As we have said in the past, this case is just one example of the way the Chaney Law Firm fights for the rights of individual Arkansans every day. The right to competent and unbiased counsel has been reaffirmed for every Arkansan who has an auto insurance policy, and we are proud to be protecting ordinary Arkansans against the interests of corporate greed.

Election/ABC services

I’ve been involved in several partisan, nonpartisan, and initiative races helping campaigns on the front lines and behind the scenes avoiding pitfalls, crunching numbers, and getting out the vote. If you’re running an election and need advice on how to educate your constituents and turn out the vote, give me a call.

INTELECTION:

I’ve designed custom software to assist in voter canvassing, which is code-named Intelection. Intelection provides political geolocation solutions that permit politicians, campaign managers, and volunteers to deploy assets and report contacts with constituents using real-time, door-to-door visualization software. Intelection helps campaigns identify likely voters with a minimum of effort. For a demo, please email info@nathanchaney.com.

Check out a screenshot:

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LOCAL OPTION ELECTIONS:

I’ve represented several citizen groups throughout the State of Arkansas during all phases of the local option election process, which is how counties in this state vote on whether to permit alcohol sales. I’ve prepared local option petitions, helped clients document proper training procedures, worked with election officials to clarify state law on who may sign petitions, counseled accountants on compliance with campaign ethics and finance rules, and worked in the campaign trenches. You can view some of my work in campaigning at the Facebook page I ran for a ballot question committee, A Vote for Growth in Clark County, in my home county.

A local option petition is subject to exacting scrutiny by our courts. Oftentimes, petitions will face substantial opposition from local temperance groups. If you are interested in forming a ballot question committee to get the wet/dry issue on your county’s ballot in the face of these challenges, I can help.

As part of a ballot question election in my home county, I have been responsible for running a new media campaign. At last count, our new media campaign reached 60% more eyes than the competition.

ABC LICENSES:

Once those local option initiatives pass, I also assist restaurant owners and aspiring entrepreneurs in navigating the often confusing alcoholic beverage regulations administered by our state. If you’re interested in selling alcoholic beverages at your business, I can guide you through the process.

The Alcoholic Beverage Control Division (“ABC”) regulates the sale of alcohol in our State. While there are over forty (40) licenses offered by the ABC, these various licenses fall under two general categories. The first type is for off-premises sales and includes places like package stores, grocery stores, or convenience stores. The second type of license is for on-premises sales and includes outlets like restaurants and hotels. The requirements for your application will depend on the type of license you’re seeking. All license types require a preliminary background check, and you’ll need detailed information about your business, your facility, and your proposed floor plan.

The application process may include hearings before the ABC’s board and appeals to our courts. The best way to avoid problems is good documentation of your business’ plans. I’ve done this before, and I’d like to help you get your license.

Chaney Law Firm fights for the use of objective medical technology tools in court

Our firm handles quite a few connective tissue injury cases. While some types of these injuries can be seen on some MRI machines, the extent to which connective tissue has been injured is usually assessed by how motion of joints is altered due to the injury. For example, the following analysis is performed for a cervical spine injury:

This is an excerpt from the American Medical Association's Guidelines to the Evaluation of Permanent Impairment ("AMA Guides"), which treating physicians usually follow in quantifying the extent of a connective tissue injury. The physician draws lines on x-rays and compares adjacent levels of the spine in a process known as radiographic mensuration analysis. Where the angles between adjacent levels exceed 11º, the AMA Guides state that the patient has a 25% permanent whole body impairment. Physicians have been performing these types of measurements and diagnoses for around a century, and the AMA Guides have required them since 1993.

Historically, this analysis took quite a bit of time and effort on the part of the physician. However, in the early- to mid-1990's, some physicians recognized that this process could be computerized and set to work creating software to perform the analysis. The resulting diagnostic procedure is called computerized radiographic mensuration analysis, or CRMA. The result is sometimes referred to as a "digitized x-ray," since plain film x-rays can be scanned and analyzed as well. Since the late 1990's, many scientific research articles, clinical practice guidelines, and healthcare associations have recognized that CRMA is easier, faster, more reliable, more repeatable, and more accurate than hand-derived measurements.

Just before a scheduled trial date for one of our clients in early January, a trial judge in Texarkana ruled that CRMA was "a mere technological advancement of established, reliable mensuration procedures such as the one utilized by the AMA Guides." For that reason, the trial judge rejected a defense challenge to the use of impairment evidence based upon CRMA and the AMA Guides. We at the Chaney Law Firm are proud to be defending the right of injury victims in Arkansas to use objective, repeatable technology tools to quantify their injuries.