Daily Archives: August 17, 2006

Conn Gen fires back in the Bagwell disability claim lawsuit

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Bagwell PC3.jpg This earlier post examined the initial exchange between the parties in the Houston Astros’ lawsuit against Connecticut General Insurance Co. over the insurer’s denial of the Stros’ claim under the disability insurance contract that the Stros bought from the insurer on their injured slugger, Jeff Bagwell (previous posts here).
Now, Conn Gen has fired back with a response (download link here) to the Stros’ argument that the club’s extra-contractual claims (juicier from an evidentiary and damages standpoint) should be tried along with the club’s more pedestrian breach of contract claim under the policy. In short, the insurer argues that there is little legal precedent for the Stros’ desire to have all of the claims adjudicated in one lawsuit and that the risk of prejudice to the insurer in having the claims tried together strongly mitigates in favor of severance of the claims for seperate trials.
I will be surprised if Connecticut General does not win this initial skirmish over severance of the Stros’ claims.

Politics of academia run amok

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Machiavelli.gifMy late father treasured his career in academic medicine, but he did concede that the politics of academia were rather byzantine at times. However, even my father didn’t expect those politics to get this brutal:

The dean of medicine at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston has temporarily stepped down, three weeks after her husband was mugged in the aftermath of announced layoffs at the school.
Dr. Valerie Parisi will “focus her attention on personal and family members” until Oct. 1, said a news release on UTMB’s Web site Wednesday.
Parisi had led reorganization efforts that include layoffs of about 1,000 employees and a change in professors’ salary structure รณ moves that have roiled the campus.
Soon thereafter, on July 27, Parisi’s husband, Gary Strong, was attacked by three masked men while walking his dog. One of the men told Strong his wife “doesn’t know who she’s (expletive) with,” leading police to believe the attack may have been related to the layoffs.

Sheesh!

The best major?

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pgachamp.jpgThe fourth and final major professional golf tournament of the year begins today in the western suburbs of Chicago as the PGA Championship returns to Medinah Country Club. Golf World’s Tim Rosaforte provides ten reasons why the PGA is not only the most improved major golf championship, but in some ways the best. Geoff Shackelford has the scoop on Medinah.
This year’s PGA Championship has the additional intrigue of the game within the game — the competition for a spot on the US Ryder Cup team — and that pairing for the first two rounds of Master’s champ Phil Mickelson, US Open champ Geoff Ogilvy and British Open champ Tiger Woods doesn’t hurt the marquee value of the tournament, either.
Finally, don’t miss this entertaining Boston Globe story on Houstonian and Champions Golf Club owner Jack Burke‘s victory at the 1956 PGA Championship. At that very different time and during a much less lucrative stage of professional golf, Burke played 155 holes over five days to beat seven opponents (the PGA Championship was match play back in those days) and win the 38th PGA Championship. For his trouble, Burke received a check for $5,000, which turned out to be hot. By the way, the article passes along Burke’s following analysis of why Woods is the top professional golfer in the world right now:

“He’s the only one who understands how to play the game, how to make shots. The other guys? They’re all out there plumb-bobbing the world, worrying about their launch angle and their ball speed. But Woods is like the great pool player — he doesn’t see the cue, doesn’t see the ball, he just sees the whole game.”