As of Monday, Metropolitan Property & Casualty Insurance Co. of Rhode Island owes $781,315 for denying a claim stemming from a 2011 fire that destroyed a Conway County family's home.
The cause of the fire has never been determined, but Metropolitan refused to cover the loss because the family's previous house at the same location had also been destroyed by fire in March 2006, causing the insurance company to suspect arson in 2011. But a federal jury determined in February that there was no evidence of arson or of deception by the family, and ordered the company to pay Gerry Calvin and his daughter, Garrisha Calvin, $501,700.
According to a verdict form, the amount included $396,700 for the loss of the dwelling, $90,000 for the loss of the contents and $15,000 for living expenses after the family was left homeless.
On Monday, Chief U.S. District Judge Brian Miller of Little Rock increased the judgment by $279,615 to cover the Calvins' attorneys' fees, costs and prejudgment interest for prevailing in a case that began when the insurance company sued the family to have the policy voided.
Meanwhile, the family still hasn't received any money through the policy, almost five years after the fire. And an attorney for the insurance company, Timothy Clancy of Tulsa, said Monday that he doesn't know if the company will want to appeal the February verdict, Monday's fee award or both.
For the Calvins and their attorneys, Patrick Cowan of Little Rock and Craig Friedman of Jacksonville, "it's definitely been a long journey," Cowan said Monday.
He said the insurance company has 30 days to file a notice of appeal. If the company does appeal, the family will have to wait even longer to recoup their money.
Cowan said the fire occurred May 15, 2011, at the house located between Plumerville and Menifee, half a mile from the nearest neighbor. He said Gerry Calvin, whom he described as "a real salt-of-the-earth kind of person" and a self-employed jack-of-all-trades, lived in the house with Garrisha, who was about 21, along with her newborn baby and with Calvin's son, Darius, who was 13.
He said the family was on a trip to Branson when the fire broke out, and by the time firefighters arrived, the house had burned to the ground.
When Calvin attempted to collect on his insurance policy, the insurance company spent 10 months investigating, only to fail to come up with a cause for the fire, or even to determine whether it was accidental or intentional.
"You'd think that would be enough investigating," Cowan said. But he said the company filed suit in state court to get a subpoena for Calvin's cellphone records, which eventually proved that he -- or at least his cellphone -- was in Branson at the time of the fire, verifying his alibi.
Cowan said the company nevertheless insisted that Calvin, or someone else acting at his direction, caused the fire. The company also claimed that the policy should be voided because an agent who wrote the policy didn't mention the previous fire, which the company said indicated that Calvin hid the previous fire from the agent. Cowan said Monday that Calvin had told the agent about the fire, but the agent didn't enter details of it into her computer. He said that this was proven through the discovery process after the Calvins filed a counterclaim to have the policy enforced. He said the agent knew about the fire before writing the policy, and proof of that was uncovered in a database.
"It was just like one of those him-against-the-world stories," Cowan said.
Although Miller initially granted summary judgment to the insurance company, dismissing the case before trial, Calvin appealed to the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis, which reversed the dismissal in September and directed that the case be decided by a federal jury.
After a four-day trial in February, jurors wrote "no" on a verdict form to the questions, "Do you find from a preponderance of the evidence that Gerry Calvin misrepresented a material fact in the application for insurance with Metropolitan?" and "Do you find from a preponderance of the evidence that Gerry Calvin or Garrisha Calvin misrepresented a material fact during the investigation of his fire claim?"
Jurors went on to determine that the family was entitled to the maximum amount of coverage for the loss of the house, as well as smaller amounts for the loss of the contents and additional living expenses.
The case wasn't officially over until Monday, however, when Miller issued an eight-page order directing Metropolitan to pay $167,233 of the $254,070 in attorneys' fees sought, as well as $5,272 in costs and $107,109 in prejudgment interest.
The Calvins had sought prejudgment interest of between $110,728 and $313,730 for the loss of their home, and prejudgment interest of $24,424 to $69,199 for the lost contents and living expenses, as well as a penalty of $47,604 and $18,174 in expenses.
Miller's order reduced the attorneys' 40 percent contingency fee to a third of the amount sought. Cowan said the fee was high because of the appeal. Miller also allowed prejudgment interest -- which accrues after an insurance company exceeds a reasonable amount of time to investigate the loss -- for the home, but not for the contents or additional living expenses. He denied the requested penalty because the verdict amount wasn't within 20 percent of the amount sought in the lawsuit, as required by law, and he denied some of the costs because of failure to justify the amounts or because of depositions taken but not used at trial.
Metro on 04/26/2016