“It’s really hard to tell,” he says, barely audible. “If I had some time.”
“You’ve had two months,” Kipler says loudly, his microphone working splendidly. The tone and volume of his words are startling. “Now answer the question.” They’re already squirming at the defense table.
“I want to know three things, Mr. Lufkin,” I say. “The number of policies in existence, the number of claims on these policies and the number of these claims which were denied. All for the year 1991. Please.”
More pages are flipped. “If I recall correctly, we had something in the neighborhood of ninety-seven thousand policies.”
“You can’t look at your numbers there and tell us for certain?”
It’s obvious he can’t. He pretends to be so engrossed in the data he can’t answer my question.
“And you’re the Vice President of Claims?” I ask, taunting.
“That’s right!” he responds.
“Let me ask you this, Mr. Lufkin. To the best of your knowledge, is the information I want contained in that printout?”
“Yes.”
“So, it’s just a matter of finding it.”
“If you’ll shut up a second, I’ll find it.” He snarls this at me like a wounded animal, and in doing so comes across very badly.
“I’m not required to shut up, Mr. Lufkin.” Drummond rises, pleads with his hands. “Your Honor,
in all fairness, the witness is trying to find the information.”
“Mr. Drummond, the witness has had two months to gather this information. He’s the Vice President of Claims, surely he can read the numbers. Overruled.”
“Forget the printout for a second, Mr. Lufkin,” I say. “In an average year, what would be the ratio of policies to claims? Just give us a percentage.”
“On the average, we get claims filed on between eight and ten percent of our policies.”
“And what percentage of the claims would ultimately be denied?”
“Around ten percent of all claims are denied,” he says. Though he suddenly has answers, he’s not the least bit pleased to share them.
“What’s the dollar amount of the average claim, whether it’s paid or denied?”
There’s a long pause as he thinks about this. I think he’s given up. He just wants to get through, get himself off the witness stand and out of Memphis.
“On the average, somewhere around five thousand dollars a claim.”
“Some claims are worth just a few hundred dollars, correct?”
“Yes.”
“And some claims are worth tens of thousands, correct?”
“Yes.”
“So it’s hard to say what’s average, right?”
“Yes.”
“Now, these averages and percentages you’ve just given me, are they fairly typical throughout the industry, or are they unique to Great Benefit?”
“I can’t speak for the industry.”
“So you don’t know?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“So you do know? Just answer the question.”
His shoulders sag a bit. The man just wants out of this room. “I’d say they’re pretty average.”
“Thank you.” I pause for effect here, study my notes for a second, change gears, wink at Deck, who eases from the courtroom. “Just a couple more, Mr. Lufkin. Did you suggest to Jackie Lemancyzk that she should quit?”
“I did not.”
“How would you rate her performance?”
“Average.”
“Do you know why she was demoted from the position of senior claims examiner?”
“As I recall, it had something to do with her skills in handling people.”
“Did she receive any type of termination pay when she resigned?”
“No. She quit.”
“No compensation of any kind?”
“No.”
“Thank you. Your Honor, I’m through with this witness.”
Drummond has two choices. He can either use Lufkin now, on direct exam with no leading questions, or he can save him for later. It will be impossible to prop up this guy, and I have no doubt Drummond will get him out of here as soon as possible.
“Your Honor, we’re going to keep Mr. Lufkin for later,” Drummond says. No surprise. The jury will never see him again.
“Very well. Call your next witness, Mr. Baylor.” I say this at full volume. “The plaintiff calls Jackie Lemancyzk.”
I turn quickly to see the reaction of Underhall and Aldy. They’re in the process of whispering to each other,
and they freeze when they hear her name. Their eyes bulge, mouths open in complete and total surprise.
Poor Lufkin is about halfway to the double doors when he hears the news. He stops cold, whirls wild-eyed at the defense table, then walks even faster from the courtroom.
As his boys scramble around him, Drummond is on his feet. “Your Honor, may we approach the bench?”
Kipler waves us up where he is to huddle away from the microphone. My opponent is pretending to be incensed. I’m sure he’s surprised, but he has no right to cry foul. He’s almost hyperventilating. “Your Honor, this is a complete surprise,” he hisses. It’s important for the jury not to hear his words or see his shock.
“Why?” I ask smugly. “She’s listed as a potential witness in the pretrial order.”
“We have a right to be forewarned. When did you find her?”
“Didn’t know she was lost.”
“It’s a fair question, Mr. Baylor,” His Honor says, frowning at me for the first time in history. I give them both an innocent look as if to say, “Hey, I’m just a rookie. Gimme a break.”
“She’s in the pretrial order,” I insist, and, frankly, all three of us know she’s going to testify. Perhaps I should’ve informed the court yesterday that she was in town, but, hey, this is my first trial.
She follows Deck into the courtroom. Underhall and Aldy refuse to look at her. The five stiffs from Trent & Brent watch every step. She cleans up nicely. A loose-fitting blue dress hangs on her thin body and falls just above her knees. Her face looks much different from last night, much prettier. She takes her oath, sits in the witness chair, shoots one hateful look at the boys from Great Benefit and is ready to testify.
I wonder if she’s slept with Underhall or Aldy. Last
night she mentioned Lufkin and one other, but I know I didn’t get a full history.
We cover the basics quickly, then move in for the kill.
“How long did you work for Great Benefit?”
“Six years.”
“And when did your employment end?”
“October 3.”
“How did it end?”
“I was fired.”
“You didn’t resign?”
“No. I was fired.”
“Who fired you?”
“It was a conspiracy. Everett Lufkin, Kermit Aldy, Jack Underhall and several others.” She nods at the guilty parties, and all necks twist toward the boys from Great Benefit.
I approach the witness and hand her a copy of her letter of resignation. “Do you recognize this,” I ask.
“This is a letter I typed and signed,” she says.
“The letter states that you’re quitting for personal reasons.”
“The letter is a lie. I was fired because of my involvement in the claim of Donny Ray Black, and because I was scheduled to give a deposition on October 5. I was fired so the company could claim I no longer worked there.”
“Who made you write this letter?”
“The same ones. It was a conspiracy.”
“Can you explain it to us?”
She looks at the jurors for the first time, and they are all looking at her. She swallows hard, and starts talking. “On the Saturday before my deposition was scheduled, I was asked to come to the office. There I met with Jack Underhall, the man sitting over there in the gray suit. He’s one of the in-house lawyers. He told me I was leaving immediately, and that I had two choices. I could call it a
firing, and leave with nothing. Or, I could write that letter, call it a resignation and the company would give me ten thousand dollars in cash to keep quiet. And I had to make the decision right there, in his presence.”
She was able to talk about this last night without emotion, but things are different in open court. She bites her lip, struggles for a minute, then is able to move on. “I’m a single mother with two children, and there are lots of bills. I had no choice. I was suddenly out of work. I wrote the letter, took the cash and signed an agreement to never discuss any of my claims files with anybody.”
“Including the Black file?”
“Specifically the Black file.”
“Then if you took the money and signed the agreement, why are you here?”
“After I got over the shock, I talked to a lawyer. A very good lawyer. He assured me the agreement I signed was illegal.”
“Do you have a copy of the agreement?”
“No. Mr. Underhall wouldn’t let me keep one. But you can ask him. I’m sure he has the original.” I slowly turn and stare at Jack Underhall, as does every other person in the courtroom. His shoelaces have suddenly become the center of his life, and he’s fiddling with them, seemingly oblivious to her testimony.
I look at Leo Drummond, and for the first time see the look of complete defeat. His client, of course, didn’t tell him about the cash bribery or the agreement signed under duress.
“Why did you see a lawyer?”
“Because I needed advice. I was wrongfully terminated. But before that, I was discriminated against because I was a woman, and I was sexually harassed by various executives at Great Benefit.”
“Anybody we know?”
“Objection, Your Honor,” Drummond says. “This might be fun to talk about, but it’s not relevant to the case.”
“Let’s see where it goes. I’ll overrule for now. Please answer the question, Ms. Lemancyzk.”
She takes a deep breath, says, “I had sex with Everett Lufkin for three years. As long as I was willing to do whatever he wanted, my pay was increased and I was promoted. When I got tired of it and stopped, I was demoted from senior claims examiner to claims handler. My pay was cut by twenty percent. Then, Russell Krokit, who was at that time the senior claims supervisor but was fired when I was, decided he’d like to have an affair. He forced himself on me, told me if I didn’t play along then I’d be out of work. But if I’d be his girl for a while, he’d make sure I got another promotion. It was either put out, or get out.”
“Both of these men are married?”
“Yes, with families. They were known to prey on the young girls in claims. I could give you a lot of names. And these weren’t the only two hotshots who traded promotions for sex.”
Again, all eyes turn to Underhall and Aldy.
I pause here to check something on my desk. It’s just a little courtroom ploy I’ve sort of learned to allow juicy testimony to hang in the air before moving on.
I look at Jackie, and she dabs her eyes with a tissue. They’re both red right now. The jury is with her, ready to kill for her.
“Let’s talk about the Black file,” I say. “It was assigned to you.”
“That’s correct. The initial claim form from Mrs. Black was assigned to me. Pursuant to company policy at that time, I sent her a letter of denial.”
“Why?”
“Why? Because all claims were initially denied, at least in 1991.”
“All claims?”
“Yes. It was our policy to deny every claim initially, then review the smaller ones that appeared to be legitimate. We eventually paid some of those, but the big claims were never paid unless a lawyer got involved.”
“When did this become policy?”
“January 1, 1991. It was an experiment, sort of a scheme.” I’m nodding at her. Get on with it. “The company decided to deny every claim over one thousand dollars for a twelve-month period. It didn’t matter how legitimate the claim was, it was simply denied. Many of the smaller claims were also ultimately denied if we could find any arguable reason. A very few of the larger claims were paid, and, again, only after the insured hired a lawyer and started threatening.”
“How long was this policy in effect?”
“Twelve months. It was a one-year experiment. It had never been done before in the industry, and it was generally viewed by management as a wonderful idea. Deny for a year, add up the money saved, deduct the amount spent on quickie court settlements, and there’s a pot of gold left.”
“How much gold?”
“The scheme netted an extra forty million or so.”
“How do you know this?”
“You stay in bed long enough with these miserable men and you hear all sorts of trash. They’ll tell everything. They’ll talk about their wives, their jobs. I’m not proud of this, okay? I didn’t get one moment of pleasure from it. I was a victim.” Her eyes are red again, and her voice shakes a little.
Another long pause as I review my notes. “How was the Black claim treated?”
“Initially, it was denied like all the rest. But it was a big claim, and coded differently. When the words ‘acute leukemia’ were noticed, everything I did was monitored by Russell Krokit. At some point early on, they realized that the policy did not exclude bone marrow transplants. It became a very serious file for two reasons. First, it was suddenly worth a ton of money, money the company obviously didn’t want to pay. And secondly, the insured was terminally ill.”
“So the claims department knew Donny Ray Black was going to die?”
“Of course. His medical records were clear. I remember one report from his doctor saying the chemo went well but the leukemia would be back, probably within a year, and that it eventually would be fatal unless his patient received the bone marrow transplant.”
“Did you show this to anyone?”
“I showed it to Russell Krokit. He showed it to his boss, Everett Lufkin. Somewhere up there the decision was made to continue the denial.”
“But you knew the claim should be paid?”
“Everybody knew it, but the company was playing the odds.”
“Could you explain this?”
“The odds that the insured wouldn’t consult a lawyer.”
“Did you know what the odds were at the time?”
“It was commonly believed that no more than one out of twenty-five would talk to a lawyer. That’s the only reason they started this experiment. They knew they could get by with it. They sell these policies to people who are not that educated, and they count on their ignorance to accept the denials.”
“What would happen when you received a letter from an attorney?”
“It became a very different situation. If the claim was
under five thousand dollars and legitimate, we paid it immediately with a letter of apology. Just a corporate mix-up, you know, that type of letter. Or maybe our computers were to blame. I’ve sent a hundred such letters. If the claim was over five thousand dollars, then the file left my hands and went to a supervisor. I think they were almost always paid. If the lawyer had filed suit or was on the verge of filing, the company would negotiate a confidential settlement.”