Talk about ingrates! All the publicity we give to trial lawyers like Brent Coon, Steve Mostyn, and Bill Voss and not a single thank-you from any of them. Not one word.
Almost any time they enter a courthouse, they can pick up a copy of the Southeast Texas Record and have a good chance of finding their names in it, along with detailed descriptions of their latest exploits. They might even discover Record articles about them in the briefs submitted to the court by the defense attorneys opposing them.
That's what happened to Voss Law attorney Scott Hunziker recently.
We've published several stories this year about Voss and his firm's penchant for accusing insurance companies of underpaying policyholders for storm damage. There have been court filings alleging that the firm used case runners to drum up business, and also represented clients without their knowledge or informed consent.
Successfully moving for dismissal, defendant State Farm Lloyds described one recent Voss case as “the epitome of the all-too-common, inadequate generic Texas insurance pleading,” noting that the complaint contained “nothing more than generic recitations of the elements of various causes of action and bare bones regurgitation of sections of the Texas Insurance Code without any factual support.”
In a current case, however, it's the Voss firm (in the person of Hunziker) that wants a dismissal and State Farm that opposes the motion.
State Farm doesn't want a complaint against it dismissed and the Voss firm does? How can that be?
“State Farm has unearthed evidence showing policyholder Plaintiffs variously unaware of being represented, unaware of payments and settlement offers State Farm had made to them, and unaware of outcome-determinative actions by the Voss Law Firm,” reads part of a State Farm’s brief opposing dismissal.
Among the materials “provided to the Court for further illumination of Voss’s questionable business practices” were articles from the SE Texas Record.
Do you think Voss and Hunziker will thank us for the publicity?