A Really Nice Letter

      I received a really nice email from a client today. It involves an insurance dispute where the residential property insurer is refusing to pay for full remediation of my client’s home. The amount at issue exceeds $130,000 dollar. Unfortunately, the state Supreme Court changed the law 3/4 of the way through the law suit, reversing decades of its own precedent and provided no retro activity to those who had relied on the prior Supreme Court rulings. The client now stands to lose the case on a procedural technicality which no one could have anticipated. We have been working on the case in anticipation of a motion filed by the defendants which simply has not come. However, we agreed to work within very strict budgets while we waited for the motion and tried to settle the case. Knowing that spending further money may not make much sense, I agreed to handle a range of remaining issues on a flat fee base at a significant discount. The client wrote me this morning with sincere appreciation for our approach and the fact that we start nearly every conversation with an analysis of whether or not it makes sense to spend further legal dollars.

      The good news is, we called the court and determined that there are no hearing dates left before the court imposed cut off for summary judgment motions. The defendant’s insurance company has been sitting on their hands for three months and may now have waived their right to bring the motion.