Monday, September 18th, 2000 — Plaintiffs’ lawyers are using a clever arsenal of weapons to confuse investigators and manufacture bad-faith claims against insurers, fraud investigators were warned at a conference here.
The alarm was sounded by two Philadelphia attorneys appearing at the annual conference of the International Association of Special Investigation Units, based in Baltimore. The pair presented a workshop on how to diagnose and avoid the bad-faith "setup."
"Savvy lawyers have as an objective from day one to expose your company to bad-faith claims," according to Robert T. Horst, who is with the Philadelphia law firm Post & Schell. He appeared with Michael R. Nelson of the same firm.
Mr. Horst, a former plaintiffs’ attorney himself, pictured Philadelphia as a prime location for such efforts. The situation there, he said, is "ugly. It’s extremely litigious and confrontational.