Wrigley’S Wars

By Gary Chartier

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Aug 27, 2010
• ISBN: 9781453526316

Book preview

Contents

Wrongful Death

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 25

CHAPTER 26

CHAPTER 27

CHAPTER 28

CHAPTER 29

CHAPTER 30

CHAPTER 31

CHAPTER 32

CHAPTER 33

CHAPTER 34

CHAPTER 35

CHAPTER 36

CHAPTER 37

CHAPTER 38

CHAPTER 39

CHAPTER 40

CHAPTER 41

CHAPTER 42

CHAPTER 43

CHAPTER 44

CHAPTER 45

CHAPTER 46

CHAPTER 47

CHAPTER 48

CHAPTER 49

CHAPTER 50

CHAPTER 51

CHAPTER 52

CHAPTER 53

CHAPTER 54

CHAPTER 55

CHAPTER 56

CHAPTER 57

EPILOGUE TO WRONGFUL DEATH

Veteran’s Denial

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

Out of Pocket Benefits

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 25

CHAPTER 26

CHAPTER 27

CHAPTER 28

CHAPTER 29

CHAPTER 30

CHAPTER 31

CHAPTER 32

CHAPTER 33

CHAPTER 34

CHAPTER 35

Two Blessed Sisters

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 25

CHAPTER 26

CHAPTER 27

CHAPTER 28

CHAPTER 29

CHAPTER 30

CHAPTER 31

CHAPTER 32

CHAPTER 33

CHAPTER 34

CHAPTER 35

CHAPTER 36

CHAPTER 37

CHAPTER 38

CHAPTER 39

CHAPTER 40

CHAPTER 41

CHAPTER 42

CHAPTER 43

CHAPTER 44

Tim Wrigley is an expert witness who is hired by attorneys and reviews primarily bad faith insurance lawsuits. He does the work nationally and is based out of Oklahoma. He has one child, a beautiful daughter named Dale. His town of birth is Muskogee, Oklahoma, and his full name is Timothy Michael Wrigley. His parents were Mary Anne Martin and Monte Pete Wrigley. He has one sibling, a sister, Lawana Jane Wrigley.

Tim’s background included an eight-year period as an assistant commissioner for the Oklahoma Insurance Department. His primary responsibilities while there were to direct the department’s switchboard, their security, along with directing the ever busy customer service division. This latter division handled all the complaints against insurance companies, adjusters, and licensed agents. Approximately, sixty five hundred complaints were booked and investigated each year. There were over one thousand five hundred typical insurance companies licensed to do business in Oklahoma. During his thirty-five year stint in the insurance industry, Tim had occupied several administrative positions inside various insurance companies, which included being a president of a small insurance company in its infancy. He had worked for mostly little companies with the exception of J. C. Penney, a member of the Fortune 500.

Tim left the insurance department at the request of the new commissioner and was replaced by a person that had worked in the insurance commissioner’s campaign. He had decided, with some coaxing from a group of attorneys, to become an expert witness. He had wanted to stay in Oklahoma and, more importantly, keep Dale in their home with no changes. He wanted to help her fulfill her goal of finishing her education with an undergraduate degree at Oklahoma State and then going on to become a dental hygienist with a dental hygiene degree at Oklahoma University. Two years for the latter.

An expert witness or professional witness is an individual who, by virtue of education, training, skill, or experience, is believed to have the know-how and specialized knowledge in a particular subject beyond that of the average person. It is presumed that others could officially rely upon the witness’s specialized opinion about evidence or a fact issue within the scope of their expertise, referred to as the expert opinion.

Experts in the insurance industry generally offer testimony on bad faith denials, industry practices and procedures on disability, life, and health, property and casualty, the standard of care by agents, and claims handling according to the industry’s standards.

During the years from 1999 through the end of 2009, Tim worked on nearly 400 cases and testified in over 125 of them.

Here are just a few.

Wrongful Death

wrongfuldeathcover.jpg

PROLOGUE

The subject of ‘insurable interest’ is usually a matter addressed by state law. One can purchase any amount of life insurance within the limits imposed by an insurance company. Any beneficiary can be named, and such beneficiary is not required to have an insurable interest in the insured.

However, for a person to purchase life insurance on someone else’s life, that person must have an insurable interest, which is generally satisfied if the person is closely related and, especially, if the purchaser would suffer a financial loss from the insured’s death. Spouses can insure each other and businesses can purchase key man insurance. However, the insurance cannot be purchased on someone who has no concerns of financial loss and also on someone who is only remotely related or unrelated.

Larry Derryberry, Attorney

Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

CHAPTER 1

National Association of Insurance Commissioners Meeting, June 1998

Chicago, Illinois

Tim Wrigley, an assistant insurance commissioner from Oklahoma, slipped into the large room and meeting a little late. Luckily, there were chairs near the back, his favorite place to set at these functions. He quickly sat down with his notebook in one hand and hot coffee in a Styrofoam cup in the other. He leaned over to a recognizable insurance department friend who he thought was from Delaware, named Karen, and said softly, How much have I missed?

Just the lovely introductions and what I think is their advertising budget for the year. With that answer she raised a napkin-wrapped donut and a nice filled china cup of coffee that had Members Against Insurance Fraud printed on the side.

Tim grinned at the funny remark, turned and leaned forward to listen. Thank you, he whispered.

In recent years, many death claims have been turned in that go against the very fabric of superior insurance sales, good quality underwriting, and proper claims. People are being purposely murdered while covered with large insurance policies when there is absolutely no insurable interest between the insured person and the named beneficiary. This meeting today will show you some recent statistics and practices that have occurred and we want to again go over the basics of insurable interest, the British-accented reinsurance executive stated to the crowd, with his eyes revolving from the west wall to the east. His reinsurance company was one of the largest in the world that shared in life insurance risks over the amount that an insurance company wanted to retain. If the company initially accepting an application with premium had a set retention of $100,000 and the applied for amount was $1,000,000, the latter amount would be split. Retained would be $100,000, with the extra $900,000 being sent to the reinsurance company for a discounted premium or payment.

Tim wondered why the terms purposely and murdered were used in this man’s presentation.

Later in the meeting, the association posted information on a large bulletin board showing a list of states where the discussed deaths had happened. They also displayed the exact geographical locations on a large screen. The last item that was made known to the NAIC members was who the beneficiary had been and the relationship, known only after the death of the insured. It also had the ever-important amount of money, or benefits counted to date, that the insurance companies lost. Tim was shocked at those figures. The total, which the association making the presentation, Members Against Insurance Fraud group, had exceeded a billion dollars for the last three years alone. Thank the Lord I live in Oklahoma. Looks like most are cropping up in New York, New Jersey, and California, Tim noted to himself.

The dullest part of the meeting in that morning-long presentation at the NAIC quarterly meeting was the going over of underwriting basics. You gents and ladies always check the age, gender, all health questions, tobacco use, and replacement areas. Now we ask and strongly suggest that you zoom in on the relationship to the beneficiary as well.

That’ll slow underwriting down to a crawl, said Tim’s Delaware lady friend.

The meeting motored on and on through lots of monotony, but Tim hung in there. The reelection of his commissioner, Keith Gordon, was going to happen soon. That office of Insurance Commissioner was an elected position every four years. There was always a chance that the other candidate, Dean Denton, could beat him. Tim, a former underwriter, would likely then return to the industry as an underwriter. He and his daughter, Dale, who was a sophomore at Oklahoma State University, lived in Mustang, Oklahoma, a suburb of Oklahoma City, on a small horse ranch. More like a zoo, thought Tim. They had six horses, a mule, four dogs and two mousers, or cats, in their little place. It was heaven to both of them though. Dale came home to her dad’s on most weekends but, usually, then spent the days out in pasture number three working her barrel horses.

Tim was the least important rider at their ranch, the Double W, but quickly became the primary rider when Dale got the cranky mare, Zoey, out to ride. They were trying to get her settled and in a good routine. He only was the off the bench rider for the mare due to his six foot two and 250 pound size. Dale trained all the horses but asked her dad to help sometime only due to his size and his great fear of being bucked off. Zoey got a little tired after she bucked him for a couple of minutes. And Tim had no shame or embarrassment when being bucked. He held on with everything he had. He grabbed the saddle horn, held the reins, and latched his long legs around Zoey seriously. Dale always got tickled when Tim got off the frisky but tired mare, leaving indentations on her sides from wrapping his legs around her big girth, rather forcefully. I’d rather have a car wreck than be thrown from a horse, he was known to repeat time after time.

As you can see, our own industry professionals even participate in the theft of insurance proceeds as explained earlier this morning, the speaker lingered. Two insurance agents from Brooklyn, New York, after insuring four street people and cleaning them up, were convicted of hiring someone to kill them; two were finished with a gun and two with poison. That cost the industry $600,000 before the killers were caught. We additionally have recently learned that two little old ladies in their seventies have also been arrested for killing street people in Los Angeles. The latter two deaths were easier arrests for the police as those deceased men had been insured for $2.8 million which were huge insurance amounts that stood out like sore thumbs. The Los Angeles Police Department expects convictions for both of these, and I use this word timidly, ‘ladies. The crowd of state regulators laughed at the comment.

Pennsylvania has added another definition to their capital punishment laws that would allow the death penalty to be added if someone is murdered for insurance proceeds. We expect that more states will follow that newly added law or add a similar one."

Tim gathered and kept copies with him of all the publication materials that were available on the subject of insurance interest for addition to his home library. He again was thankful that he was from the Bible belt of the United States.

Thank goodness that it doesn’t happen here, thought Tim, about his home state of Oklahoma.

CHAPTER 2

May 5, 2000

Hope, Arkansas

Dave Offen was sitting at the Possum Trot Bar just outside of Hope, Arkansas, at the intersection of Highway 32 and Possum Road. The building was all aluminum and could pass for a square corncrib except for the beer signs and posters all around plus the dozen or so old cars and pickup trucks in the lot outside the bar.

For an hour or so, Dave Offen had been sucking beers down at the front of the bar. Dave was very lazy. He sat down as fast as he could when eating or drinking, whether out at a restaurant, a bar, or even someone else’s house. It didn’t matter whether he was alone or not. At his own home, he had a chair sitting close to the front door of his house. A television sat on top of a TV tray directly in front of that chair. He was really lazy.

Waylon and Willie yelled loudly from the jukebox, Mommas, don’t let your babies grow up to be cowboys. It was noisy in the Possum Trot Bar.

Trixie McHamm entered the bar’s main door and found Dave right there at the front entry. Trixie and her former son-in-law had to squeeze closely together at the bar to talk due to the noise. About fifteen men were running up beer tabs in the little bar. Bright and colorful plastic bowls of peanuts were everywhere as were the shells that had been opened and dumped onto the floor. A couple of pool games were going on too. It seemed that everyone at the bar was hanging over the top of their beer bottles, in a near slump. The bartender, Markus Manson, polished and re-polished the old mahogany bar, poured more peanuts into plastic bowls, and emptied the cigarette butt-filled ashtrays.

After Trixie was served a cold beer, and a fourth one brought to Dave, she leaned into Dave and said, I have a little task for you. It will make you $2,500. Dave had been married to Trixie’s oldest child, Martha, and was the father of Sherry and Jim, his and Martha’s children and two of Trixie’s grandchildren. Dave and Martha had been divorced now for three years.

What kind of job? Dave asked.

Just get your rifle ready and let’s go for a drive this weekend. You still can shoot straight, right? asked Trixie. Dave only grinned, but added a little coughing smirk.

I’ll pick you up Saturday night right here at ’bout eight. We are driving a ways but you can just sleep on the way there. Here, let me buy you another beer.

A little smile appeared on Trixie’s face as she pushed a bill toward Markus. Set us up big boy, she said as she smiled.

CHAPTER 3

May 6, 2000

Arkansas and Missouri

The sun in the west was dropping over the hill on Interstate 70 on the way to Lexington, Missouri. The small Volkswagen continued going east up the road. Dave’s arm was padding his head as he leaned out the window, sound asleep. Trixie was wearing sunglasses as she drove. The radio was loud and blaring a country tune.

A rifle barrel was poking up in the corner of the back seat of the VW, barely visible to the eye.

CHAPTER 4

May 7, 2000

Lexington, Missouri

Dust swirled on that spring day outside the 7-Eleven on State Highway 24 in Lexington. Customers drove in and jumped out of their cars, hurrying into the store, mostly to buy beer and sodas. The time was nearing four o’clock and the local weekend group of people was happy, relaxed, and thrilled at the beautiful weather and the nearly perfect Sunday afternoon there in Missouri.

Trixie and Dave sat in the dark little car at the far end of the parking lot. They had been there most of the day.

One side of the double glass doors opened and out walked Clara Sanders, smiling back at some guys because of the flirting comments they were making while on their way into the store. Boys, boys. Be gentlemen, please, she requested sweetly. She then bounced over to the little green Ford Escort, jumped in, and immediately took off out of the lot. The small black German car followed, with Trixie still behind the wheel.

A man just inside the store was watching them through the front windows of the 7-Eleven. His badge read, Manager.

*

At a few miles out on State Highway 24, the Volkswagen’s lights blinked on and off and the horn beeped a few times. Clara, driving and singing along to her latest Reba McEntire disk, glanced in her mirror quickly and pulled the little green Ford over. Trixie stopped and parked her VW about four car-lengths behind the green Ford. Trixie climbed out quickly after whispering something to Dave and ran up to the car. Clara, having met Trixie at her Arkansas home once when Joe, her son Benny and she had visited, recognized her, and laughed with surprise and happiness at seeing her here in Missouri. They hugged and Trixie inquired about Benny, her grandson. Clara and Trixie were talking busily with Trixie standing only a few feet from Clara with her back to the road they were parked. Clara leaned against her car.

While the two women chatted, with Clara updating her on how big Benny had become and how her college courses had been that semester, Dave reached into the back seat of the VW and pulled the old rifle over the seat and into his lap. He reached across the dash and pulled Trixie’s car keys out of the ignition. Clara had not yet noticed him at all, and he didn’t want the car’s warning bell to sound. From his pocket, he took out a long bullet and pushed it into the rifle’s loading chute. He then levered it into the chamber, which cocked the rifle. The weapon was now ready to fire. After checking up and down the road for any traffic and finding none, the car door was slowly opened with Dave sliding out onto the grassy side of the road. He kneeled with one knee on the ground while bringing up the .30-30 rifle, leaning it on the car’s door hinge. The old Model 94, with the bluing worn throughout the gun’s body, was sighted onto the left temple of Clara’s pretty head. Her blonde hair was blowing everywhere.

Dave Offen’s eyesight was perfect. He had killed several deer every year since his twelfth birthday, feeding his family along with several other friends and relatives. He had never purchased a hunting license.

Dave squinted a bit with the rifle’s sights right on the mark he wanted to hit. It was dry outside, with a light wind.

The rifle’s explosion rang out, and with that shot, Clara’s body almost did a half cartwheel slamming into the open car door and then dropping straight to the ground. Trixie instantly had a little smile fixed on her face though several drops of blood sprayed her face coming from the bloody head wound to Clara.

Offen pointed the old rifle toward the ground and levered it quickly. This sent the empty casing to the ground