Al & Kathy Legan - Joliet, Illinois

Letter to Joliet Herald Newspaper

Sunday, September 05, 1999
Dear letters to the Editor:

THE CIVIL COURT SYSTEM IS BROKEN, IT NEEDS TO BE FIXED!

During the first week of September we had a civil trial. This trial was brought forth on behalf of my wife and myself and against Allstate Insurance Co. The trial was an attempt to recover expenses incurred due to a 1997 accident.

During 1997 an Allstate insured person turned left, in front of us, causing an accident. We were forced to pay out of our pockets over $3000.00 in expenses due to this accident, an accident that was not our fault!

We both believe in following the Law and will never drive without automobile insurance. However the responsible parties insurance refused to accept, at that time, full responsibility for their clients actions, so we were forced to have our insurance repair our vehicle. It took over 3 months to repair our car, which includes a month delay caused by Allstate, during the entire time we were renting a car.

Before this happened we were like most people, and thought if you have a dispute with an insurance carrier, you have a couple of options. First is to file a complaint with the Illinois State Insurance Commissioner, we did that and was told in writing. "On April 17,1981, the Supreme Court of Illinois rendered an opinion that changed the form of negligence from contributory negligence to pure comparative negligence", therefore Allstate is within their rights to deny 100% liability for this claim.

The second option is to hire a lawyer and file a motion in civil court to get the court to force Allstate to accept responsibility. When the trial started Allstate finally accepted full responsibility for this accident. But went on to accuse us of making bad choices. That is why the repairs took so long. Now it is my fault! The only bad choice I made was thinking the second largest insurance carrier in Illinois would accept responsibility for their client’s action.

In civil court we always thought that everyone in there has a story to tell, and our story would be told to twelve jurors who could not refuse us this claim. We were wrong!

As soon as court started we were told we could not say anything about insurance companies, not even the word insurance, or there would be a mistrial. The whole time we were under attack by their attorney, and accused of delaying the repairs. All we were allowed to say was "it took 5 weeks before the funds were made available." Not one word that the delay were caused by allstate, for it was my fault not theirs. All we was hoping to get out of this was the amount of money we spent on this accident, plus enough to pay our lawyers fees. We didn’t even come close.

We don’t blame the jurors. With what they were allowed to hear no one could not have come up with an intelligent decision. That is what the insurance company wanted and got.

The civil court system, when it comes to insurance cases, is not using a level playing field. Everything is designed to prevent the truth from being told, and it worked to perfection, and in their favor.

Al & Kathy Legan
Joliet, Illinois.

Continue to Page 4 - Letter To Illinois Department of Insurance

"There is no incentive for insurance companies to do what is right, such as live up to the promises made in their policies. Tort reformers fueled by insurance money think big business and the insurance industry need to be protected against "runaway juries." It's the other way around. Big business and the insurance industry have always been able to take care of themselves. The little people need protection from them. This country was founded on the common law right of the little guy to get into court with his hired gun to fight the oppressor, be it big government or big business. Take that away and we have nothing left. Look around. It's being whittled away, bit by bit, caps on damages here, restrictions on jury trials there. It won't end until we recognize the enemy and join together to take a stand against them. It will take the little people to do this together".

Louis G. Fazzi, Esq. Attorney & Counselor At Law