Our Client’s Problem

The insured, a fitness club, had been experiencing declining membership for two years leading up to a series of sewage overflow incidents that closed all or part of the facility several times in a four-month span of time.  Our client determined the losses were covered, and the insured asserted a claim for lost business income.  The insured acknowledged that memberships had been declining, but could not pinpoint the reason for the decline.  Nevertheless, the insured was certain that the problem had been resolved and, but for the sewage overflows, membership would have at least remained steady, if not increased.  We were hired to verify the amount of lost business income supported by the insured’s records.

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Our Client’s Problem

The insured was a dealer in motorized vehicles.  When a fire gutted the building, the insured submitted a large claim for destroyed inventory.  The vast majority of it was comprised of large quantities of items in just a few inventory stock numbers.  The insured documented the claim with an inventory report generated using an off-the-shelf accounting software package that was known for its ability to be easily manipulated without leaving an apparent document trail.  There were material discrepancies between the inventory according to the computerized inventory reports and the inventories reported on the company’s tax returns.

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Our Client’s Problem

The claimant carried an extensive inventory of electronic switching equipment and kept track of the inventory using an Oracle software system that listed each item at its manufactured cost.  However, due to industry changes and technological advances much of the inventory was obsolete.  When a fire broke out in the claimant’s warehouse, some of the inventory was destroyed, but most suffered only minor smoke damage or no damage at all.  The claimant demanded the hypothetical cost to remanufacture the inventory, but the legal standard of value was the reduction in fair market value.  We were hired to help establish the fair market value of the inventory immediately before and after the fire.

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Our Client’s Problem

The plaintiff, a medical service provider, damaged her sports car when it ran over a log that fell from our client’s logging truck.  Although the vehicle damage was minor, the plaintiff alleged that she sustained extensive soft-tissue and nerve injuries that interfered with her ability to work at her full-time job and part-time sideline practice.  She testified in deposition that the accident caused her to develop severe migraine headaches and fibromyalgia that left her totally disabled for hours and days at a time.  In the midst of her infirmity, the plaintiff got married, left her job and moved 200 miles away to the hometown of her new husband.  Our client needed help discerning how much of her wage loss was due to her alleged injuries as opposed to her move.

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The Problem

Our client, a workers’ compensation carrier, had information that its wage benefits claimant was working in and managing a business he had formed with his wife and brother just three weeks after his allegedly debilitating injury. The surveillance investigator that our client hired had limited success getting video of the claimant talking with customers and demonstrating product. Nevertheless, counsel for the claimant deflected the video evidence, dismissing it as an isolated instance that required minimal effort at a time when the claimant’s wife and brother were not available to assist the customer. Our client needed irrefutable evidence of the claimant’s work at his new company and how much he made.

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