Washington–The Supreme Court has turned down a request to review a policyholders' suit against State Farm that alleged the insurer used unreliable parts for collision repairs.

Attorneys for the class action, in their request for a hearing by the high court, had questioned the impartiality of an Illinois judge who was part of a decision to toss out a $1.01 billion judgment against State Farm.

The court without comment Monday declined to review the case despite claims by the plaintiffs that Illinois Supreme Court Justice Lloyd Karmeier should have been disqualified from hearing the case because he had accepted direct and indirect contributions from State Farm to finance his election to the Illinois Supreme Court.

In overturning the parts case jury award, the Illinois Supreme Court found that the suit on behalf of 4.7 million insureds involved too many individual issues to qualify as a class action.

The suit contended State Farm had policyholder's vehicles repaired with nonoriginal manufacturers' parts that could be unsafe.

In their federal appeal petition, lawyers for the plaintiffs alleged State Farm unconstitutionally bought the verdict by financing the successful election campaign of Justice Karmeier, who cast the key vote to vacate the jury verdict.

“May a judge who receives more than $1 million in direct and indirect campaign contribution from a party [to the case] and its supporters, while that party's case is pending, cast the deciding vote in that party's favor, consistent with the due process clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution?” the plaintiffs in Avery vs. State Farm asked in their request for the High Court to review the Illinois Supreme Court ruling.

The petition said that Justice Karmeier directly received $350,000 in State Farm-related donations.

In its response to the petition, lawyers for State Farm said there had been no showing of any appearance of impropriety. The insurer said it didn't make any contributions to Justice Karmeier either directly or through some other organization.

“This court should reject (their) attempt to salvage some part of their case by improperly impugning the integrity of Justice Karmeier and the Illinois Supreme Court,” lead lawyer Sheila Birnbaum said in court papers.

The plaintiffs were appealing an August 2005 decision by the Illinois Supreme Court on vacating a $1.2 billion award by an Illinois jury in 1999 to 4,762,000 State Farm policyholders in 48 states. The plaintiffs had claimed that their first-party comprehensive and collision claims had been repaired through use of substandard, unsafe nonoriginal equipment manufacturer crash parts.

The Illinois high court found that differences in customers' insurance policies meant they did not share the same conditions necessary to sue as a group.

Additionally, the state Supreme Court found, it was a mistake for an Illinois trial court to grant national class-action status when there was only one named plaintiff from Illinois and he failed to prove he had suffered actual damages.

In a friend of the court brief to the Illinois Supreme Court, the United States Chamber of Commerce had noted the case was originally filed in Williams County, which ranked as one of the worst jurisdictions in the country for class action abuse, dubbed by some anti-plaintiff's lawyer groups as a “judicial hellhole.”

Justice Karmeier, who has had no comment on the case, has come under attack in Illinois from public interest groups who last month asked a state judicial conduct board to review his actions in the State Farm case and another involving Philip Morris USA.

Fraser Engerman, public affairs manager for State Farm, said on behalf of the company that, “We are pleased that the U.S. Supreme Court has decided not to grant the plaintiffs' petition.” He added, “We have always believed that the Illinois Supreme Court decision was a good one for consumers.

“As with all types of business, consumers benefit from open competition in the replacement parts business,” he added. “The Illinois Supreme Court decision also recognized the problems inherent with national and multistate class actions.

“We look forward to putting this matter behind us and getting with the business of serving our customers' insurance and financial services needs,” he continued.

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Appeal Rejected In State Farm Parts Case

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