State Farm v. 22660
In State Farm v. 22660 filed in 2015, State Farm claimed that a brother and sister (non-medical professionals) owned the clinic even though Dr. Huxtable was listed on sunbiz.org as the President. On the day State Farm filed the lawsuit, Dr. Huxtable was in federal prison serving a five-year sentence for insurance fraud. State Farm claimed that the clinic was really owned and controlled by the brother and sister.
As evidence that the brother/sister were the real owners, State Farm attached an email from their own attorney! As background, the clinic lost multiple PIP suits because of ownership issue and the judge ordered the clinic to repay State Farm their “costs” in fighting some of those cases. One of the cases resulted in a judgment for $380.57 owed to State Farm. The brother/sister chose to pay the judgments that were against the clinic in the hopes that State Farm would take the money and go away.
The attorney representing the brother/sister for their pending criminal cases was an absolute moron and disclosed that the Money Order for $380.57 was from the sister/his client. The email and Money Order were attached to the lawsuit that State Farm filed and are shown below:
As you can see below, the Money Order doesn’t include the sister’s name anywhere, so the attorney committed malpractice by sending that email. The signatures on the Money Order are from the bank teller. I redacted the attorney’s name and address from the Money Order.
Additionally, through the PIP suits, State Farm was able to send subpoenas to the landlord and found out that the brother/sister signed the lease, not the doctor. Also, State Farm was able to subpoena the bank account for the clinic and found out that the brother/sister were listed as “signers” on the checking account and could withdraw money from the checking account. About 95% of the checks were signed by the brother/sister while 5% of the checks were signed by Dr. Huxtable. They also found out that Dr. Huxtable was paid only $192,000 from the checking account while the brother/sister were paid $916,000.
Remember, “wholly owned” means 100% owner; with the bank records State Farm could make a pretty convincing case that Dr. Huxtable only owned about 17% of the business since 83% of the funds went to the brother/sister.
All of this was evidence that the clinic was not “wholly owned” by the doctor which means State Farm was owed all of the money it previously paid to this clinic!
DISCLAIMER
This is based on a real court case that was previously filed against a medical provider/doctor. The case number has been partially redacted and names have been changed to protect the Defendants’ names. This example is posted to help educate others on the laws and potential pitfalls. This posting is not intended to embarrass or defame anyone. I have limited the information and simplified some of the facts in the lawsuit to reflect key points and make a complicated case easier to understand. This “example” is directly from a complaint filed by an insurance company, therefore, I am using the facts THEY presented. There are always two sides to a story so please understand this is just one side of the story. This information was found through records available to the public.