Not to be outdone by Drinker Biddle, the Pullman & Comley law firm has added S2KM Limited to the email distribution list for its newsletter titled "Structured Settlement Insights" which is also available on the Pullman & Comley website.
The summer 2007 issue of Pullman & Comley's Structured Settlement Insights includes valuable summaries for these structured settlement cases:
- Rapid v. Symetra - also reviewed in this earlier S2KM blog post. Note: Pullman & Comley's Peter Vodola represented Symetra in this case.
- Transamerica v. Settlement Capital - also addressed in the Drinker Biddle June 2007 Structured Settlement Update and this earlier S2KM blog post.
- Joseph v.The City of New York - according to Pullman & Comley: "the first court opinion to analyze the requirements in structured settlement protection acts that disclosures be made when negotiating a structured settlement."
The Joseph case opens a potential Pandora's box for the traditional structured settlement industry. According to Pullman & Comley, "The case serves as a signal that the courts are aware of, and may enforce, initial disclosure requirements in the New York Structured Settlement Protection Act and the three other state structured settlement protection acts that include such initial disclosure provisions."
In addition to New York, the Florida, Massachusetts and Minnesota state structured settlement protections statutes each require mandatory initial written disclosure of the following:
- Amount and due dates of each payment;
- Amount of the premium;
- Discounted present value of all certain payments;
- Discount rate used to make the present value calculation.
In Joseph, the parties disputed the terms of the structured settlement after agreeing to a "stipulation on consent". Plaintiffs objected to specific terms contained in the defendants' subsequent structured settlement proposal including its non-assignability language.
The court held the stipulation on consent "fails in several important ways to qualify as an enforceable settlement agreement" in part because of deficiencies that are " precisely the kind of mandatory disclosures required by New York's Structured Settlement Protection Act." The court added that the subjects of the required disclosure "are material terms of any structured settlement agreement."
Pullman & Comley's newsletter concludes: "settling defendants who fail to comply with the initial disclosures, or otherwise fail to agree upon material terms prior to reporting a case settled, may find themselves later unable to enforce the settlement."
Thank you to both Pullman & Comley and Drinker Biddle for their contributions to online structured settlement legal commentary.
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