A little more on this is that I think I read the auto policy limit is only a $1M. The award is for $5.2M. It’s generally pretty hard to get an insurance company to pay more than their limit. This may be one of those cases though where the insured was left out to dry and defend themselves because Geico wrongfully denied the claim and a court says you have to pay the full award regardless of what the limit is. Idk if that’s the case here based on what I read.
I guess I’m sill trying to figure out how Geico ends up as a party in the suit? I think you misunderstood what I had asked earlier -
If somebody hits me with their fist while I"m sitting in their car, am I now able to sue their insurance company? That’s what I equate having sex in the car and getting an STD with. Seems ridiculous.
If I have sex in the car and spooge on the girls dress, can she sue my insurance company for cleaning fees?
So this is a much larger question. Insurance law is state dependent. Some states are called “direct action” states where someone can file a lawsuit against someone else’s insurance company right away as they file a lawsuit against the individual. Most other states require you to get a judgment against the insured before you can file a suit against their insurance company directly. Idk what Missouri is.
Here, the woman has an actual judgment against Geico’s insured (the guy who gave her HPV) via the arbitrator’s decision. She filed a petition for damages, asking the court to enforce the judgment and treat it as any other jury award.
She didn’t sue Geico directly. Geico intervened - saying to the court that Geico has an interest in this petition for damages because it’s a case involving a Geico insured. So in this case Geico asked to get involved. The court rejected Geico’s reasoning because it clearly missed its chance to participate in the defense of their insured.
She can try and the claim would likely be denied because of the reason Geico denied this woman’s claim and the fact doing that is an intentional act.
Also, I think the headlines are incorrect (at least based on the minimal amount I quickly read) in that the court didn’t say Geico owes her the $5.2M. Just that Geico can’t argue the liability/damages anymore. Whether the $5.2M awarded for giving her HPV is covered under the auto policy seems to still be decided in the federal court action Geico brought saying they don’t owe a defense/indemnity to the man.
This is probably the end of the insurance industry as we know it. Praying for GEICO to remain solvent 
Assuming no tortious acts on GEICO’s part, I don’t see how an insurer could be forced to pay out over the policy max.
Ok but why on earth would an arbitrator decide the insurance company should be involved here? There has to be some standard right? What if they had sex on the hood of the car, does that count too? What if under the car (high clearance 4x4 obv)? What if he took off the antenna and playfully whipped her with it during sex? What if they did it next to the car but touched the car one time during sex? What if they were in a rental?
Like it just makes zero sense. What is the line where a car is no longer involved? How is this not clearly defined and excluding acts that just happen to be inside the car but have nothing to do with the car?
If I cut up my hand in my garbage disposal, can I sue my homeowners insurance for damages?
Probably. I’m fairly certain it would cover an injury like that to a guest, less sure if it covers injuries to the owner.
Homeowner’s insurance covers a lot more than people realize. For instance, it can cover defamation.
A correction was added to the story as I had thought the headline was misleading earlier. The court didn’t decide the issue on whether Geico owes the $5.2M. Geico is still arguing with the woman on whether her getting HPV in the car (or all the things you listed) are covered in the policy.
The only thing this case solved was whether Geico could contest/appeal the $5.2M arbitrator award. TBD whether they actually owe it under the policy.
Correction: An earlier version of this story erroneously stated that the decision by the Missouri Court of Appeals meant insurance company GEICO must pay the judgment claim. The insurance company is still contesting the decision in federal court, arguing that the claim is not covered under the policy.
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Bad faith claims don’t technically involve tortious acts, I believe. This isn’t the area of law I practice, but basically bad faith is the insured doesn’t tender the limit soon enough when it’s obvious they should and they can be on the hook for a shot ton more
Are we sure it’s the auto policy? Most homeowner’s or renter’s policies have personal liability coverage, which seems like a much more reasonable case that they are partially on the hook when their insured gets this type of judgement.
Some states the auto policies only cover up to like 500k and people like me buy extra coverage under a personal liability umbrella policy to protect against losing all my assets in scenarios like my wife causes an accident and the other person’s hospital bills go over the policy limits.
Kind of cool that arbitration back fired on geico. Even funnier is they ran back to the courts after it did.
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Really long, but really good, Twitter thread on the Geico decision, binding arbitration in general, why it sucks for consumers, and how it’s coming around to bite corporations in the ass:
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https://twitter.com/davidsirota/status/1536336143779672066?s=21&t=Zk7TOVFkCrvDqfIRejcNFA
@Preet_Bharara congrats!!
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Agree with the theme of this thread that binding arbitration clauses are awful for individuals forced upon them by giant corporations. The Uber and TurboTax cases are perfect examples of people fighting back against them and using arbitration against them. Arbitrators are not cheap so the court making them hire individual arbitrators for each case is great and a real fuck you.
My nitpick wrt the Geico case is that Geico didn’t force the woman into arbitration. From what I’ve read, after Geico denied the claim the woman and man voluntarily agreed to proceed with arbitration. I don’t think there was anything preventing her from filing a lawsuit against the guy, they just agreed to arbitrate the claim instead of use a court. The thread was correct in that the court case in the news now just says Geico can’t re-litigate the arbitrator’s decision even though Geico wasn’t involved with it. The thread misses pointing out that now Geico is litigating whether there is coverage for the claim in federal court.
Tldr;16 year old raped by 30 year old…rapist is connected in his town… Gets custody of child from rape at age 16, the same age he raped the kids mother
Hot take incoming.
Cases of apparently egregious child support decisions seem to come up now and then (though I have never seen one like this), but every time the logic is that the money is for the child. It’s the child’s right to receive support. And that logic seems to apply here. In theory, at least, the money is going to the child and not the rapist. So, I guess I can kind of see the logic in that in requiring the non-custodial parent to contribute to the child’s expenses.
What I really want to know is how they gave the rapist custody in the first place? That’s the fucked up part of this whole situation.
And as someone that paid child support that wasn’t even really abused, let’s just say that not all and sometimes not all that much of the money goes to the kids.
Some of the shit my friends went through…
Oh, I realize that. The problem is that the court has to act as if it is going towards supporting the child.
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This is a terrible story, and now there’s all kinds of odd stuff that I wish I knew more about.
- She had the baby in 2005 and let people assume that she was pregnant with a boyfriend’s baby.
- In 2011, the guy learns that there’s a kid and seeks custody. Guy gets 50/50 custody. The story says “They granted him 50/50 custody despite the fact that [the child] was caused by rape.” That’s true in the sense that he clearly committed statutory rape, but there wasn’t any criminal trial for that statutory rape? It seems difficult to award custody based on facts/charges that haven’t actually been established in court.
- She filed charges in 2015, but “The Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff’s Office says an investigation is still open”. The investigation should have taken roughly 4 minutes, because the plain fact of their ages satisfies the statuory rape charge?
- Things took a dramatic turn this year when a judge granted Barnes full custody. It happened after Barnes alleged Abelseth gave her daughter a cell phone. WAT?
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