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Chittenden, Murday & Novotny LLC proudly announces that Craig M. Bargher has been named a Member of the Firm effective January 2021.  Craig’s practice is focused on representing the Firm’s clients in a wide variety of litigation matters in state and federal courts, with extensive experience handling ERISA and individual life and disability litigation, as well as general commercial litigation.

CMN trial lawyers Elizabeth Doolin, Julie Wall, and Kaitlyn Luther won a decisive victory in the Eastern District of New York following a bench trial before Magistrate Judge Sanket Bulsara. At issue was a $10 million life insurance policy procured pursuant to a fraudulent investment scheme and through multiple misrepresentations concerning the applicant’s finances, other insurance, and premium financing. The policy investors brought a breach of contract claim for the $10 million death benefit proceeds, and the insurer counterclaimed for rescission and fraud against the investors and the writing agent. After a four-day bench trial in the spring of 2019, Judge Bulsara issued his findings of fact and conclusions of law on April 17, 2020, finding the policy rescinded as a result of the insured’s material misrepresentations, allowing the insurer to equitably retain all premiums paid due to the fraud involved in the policy’s procurement, and holding that the writing agent was liable for fraud. CMN’s lawyers are always prepared to go the distance for their clients, and were pleased to bring home a win this spring.

After successfully moving to decertify the class in a lawsuit alleging the Firm’s health insurer client violated the TCPA by sending faxes to the insurer’s contracted agents without the specific opt-out notice required by FCC regulations, CMN lawyers have now defeated the class plaintiff’s challenge on appeal. Previously, in related litigation before the FCC, CMN secured a waiver of the regulation for the faxes in question.  On December 3, 2018, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals issued its opinion affirming the class decertification holding that in light of the waiver, the evidence CMN presented showing putative class members’ consent to receive the faxes raised individual issues that precluded class treatment of their claims.  The Opinion is available on the link below.

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Opinion