NU Online News Service

State Farm will visit Kentucky on Tuesday to speak with longtime nemesis, former attorney Richard "Dickie" Scruggs.

Scruggs is serving a seven-year sentence at the Federal Correctional Institute in Ashland, Ky. He was sentenced two years ago.

The Louisiana attorney once dubbed the "King of Torts" admitted he took part in the attempted bribery of a Mississippi circuit court judge who presided over a case involving the split of attorneys' fees with another attorney in the Scruggs Katrina Group (SKG).

The group had filed lawsuits against insurers on behalf of hundreds of policyholders following Hurricane Katrina.

State Farm wants to take pre-trial testimony from Scruggs as part of the insurer's preparation for a trial against Scruggs' former clients, Cori and Kerri Rigsby, according to court documents.

The Rigsby sisters adjusted claims for an independent contractor State Farm used after Katrina. The sisters alleged that the insurer defrauded the federal government by shifting claims responsibility to the National Flood Insurance Program.

State Farm has denied the Rigsbys' allegations. The trial is set to begin at the start of December, but both sides are now gathering pre-trial evidence, called discovery, with a deadline of July 1, court records show.

The Rigsbys gave Scruggs hundreds of State Farm claims documents, which the attorney said backed up allegations against the insurer. The sisters then went to work as consultants for Scruggs--a relationship since called unethical by a U.S. District Court judge who then barred the Rigsbys from testifying in other cases against insurers.

The sisters can only provide testimony on the claim of Biloxi, Miss., couple Thomas and Pamela McIntosh, because that is the sole case in which they have firsthand knowledge, a judge ruled.

The insurer is also seeking a number of documents from Mr. Scruggs, including the documents the Rigsbys took from State Farm.

Additionally, the company is looking for records of real estate purchases by the Rigsby sisters, records of payments of any kind to the Rigsbys, contracts for payment, materials of correspondence between the law firms of the SKG, travel records for the Rigsbys, and any evidence of communication between the SKG and former Senator Trent Lott relating to the McIntosh claim.

Lott is Scruggs' brother-in-law.

Special Reports /

State Farm To Speak With Scruggs In Prison About Whistleblowers

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