Forget the warm and fuzzies on State Farm's "Cheers"-themed television commercials (as cute and entertaining as they are - my favorite one is with the guy named "Hank" and his wife, uh huh...). They write their own corporate policies into their policies, legal or no.
Many companies are known for implementing written policies that are against the law and hoping that no one notices it; that way, if you sue later on, they can hold you up in court on technicalities for so long that it becomes financially disabling to even call them on it.
In a day and age when bad faith insurance companies, large "greedy" corporations, Wall Street bankers and everyone else who helped lead America's way to a severe economic crash bordering on the level of the Great Depression of the 1920s, it would seem that State Farm would want to be as far away from that crowd as they can get.
But it's the "little guys" in America that are often used for corporate America's personal ATMs. Ricardo White, who paid his policy premiums, may have found himself one of the many headed into a time-wasting fight with the "big guys" because they'd rather pay attorneys to keep them from paying a claim than to pay the claim and protect their customer, now a former customer.
That's what happened when White's home, covered by a State Farm hazard insurance policy, was burglarized.
State Farm refused to pay the claim of about $135,000; then when White sued for breach of contract a little more than a year later, State Farm also retained a lawyer to uphold their policy's one-year statute of limitations over the state of Georgia's two-year statute.
We are often taught in paralegal school that the law supercedes contracts, and any time a person writes anything into a contract that violates the laws as given, the contract, which was not in legal compliance, is automatically null and void and the law is upheld. In other words, State Farm's contract is 'arguably' not in compliance with Georgia state law.
The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta has sought help from the Supreme Court on the question of the statute of limitations under Title 33 of the Official Code of Georgia (O.C.G.A.); i.e., will State Farm's one-year policy stand up in court, or the state of Georgia's two-year limitation? They did discharge White's bad faith and fraud claims ('breach of contract') for lack of jurisdiction.
Stay tuned: State Farm is listed on the FBIC's "Hall of Shame" website as one of the Number One Bad Faith insurance companies in the nation. Sometimes you may not want State Farm to know your name, especially if it is on an insurance policy.
Cheers.
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