11th Circuit cites Bible, labels lawyer's action a 'textbook example of bad faith'
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A Georgia lawyer’s plan to split a personal-injury settlement into two checks in an alleged attempt to avoid reimbursing a client’s employer for medical costs has turned out to be costly.
The Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the personal injury client, Brenda Elem, must reimburse her employer, AirTran, for about $130,000 in medical costs it paid after her car accident, Law.com reports. And Elem and her lawyer, Mark Link of Link & Smith, will also have to pay AirTran nearly $150,000 in attorney fees and costs it spent trying to recover the money.
According to the 2-1 decision (PDF), Link split the settlement into two checks, one for $25,000 and the other for $475,000. When AirTran sought reimbursement, Link “misrepresented that Elem had settled for only $25,000,” the opinion said. “Link’s sin then found him out, see Numbers 32:23, when he accidentally sent the [employee benefit] plan a copy of a settlement check for $475,000.” Various translations of Numbers 32:23 are available here.
Link argued that the $25,000 check was for the amount of the accident defendant’s insurance policy limit, and the $475,000 was for a failure to settle the case within the policy limit.
The 11th Circuit was not persuaded. “We rarely see such a textbook example of ‘bad faith,’ ” the opinion said.
Link and his lawyer, Charles Cork III, did not immediately respond to an email request for comment.
