BEST ["TRUE"] LAWYER STORY OF THE YEAR
This took place in Charlotte, North Carolina. A lawyer purchased a box of very rare and expensive cigars, then insured them against, among other things, fire. Within a month, having smoked his entire stockpile of these great cigars, the lawyer filed a claim against the insurance company.
In his claim, the lawyer stated the cigars were lost 'in a series of small fires.' The insurance company refused to pay, citing the obvious reason, that the man had consumed the cigars in the normal fashion. The lawyer sued - and WON! (Stay with me.) Delivering the ruling, the judge agreed with the insurance company that the claim was frivolous.
The judge stated nevertheless, that the lawyer held a policy from the company, in which it had warranted that the cigars were insurable and also guaranteed that it would insure them against fire, without defining what is considered to be unacceptable 'fire' and was obligated to pay the claim.
Rather than endure lengthy and costly appeal process, the insurance company accepted the ruling and paid $15,000 to the lawyer for his loss of the cigars that perished in the 'fires'.
NOW FOR THE BEST PART... After the lawyer cashed the check, the insurance company had him arrested on 24 counts of ARSON!!! With his own insurance claim and testimony from the previous case being used against him, the lawyer was convicted of intentionally burning his insured property and was sentenced to 24 months in jail and a $24,000 fine.
This true story won First Place in last year's Criminal Lawyers Award contest.
[Hat tip to J.S.]
Your link to Snopes exposes this as a fake. Are you suggesting that it's not?
ReplyDeleteDear "Anonymous,"
ReplyDeleteOf course I'm not suggesting that it's not a fake.
Wait: some people misread double negatives, so let me put that in the emphatic positive: I linked to Snopes precisely to let people know that it IS a fake.
I left the original adgjective "true" is it was in the original, but added quotation marks and the URL link to it to show that the account was fake.
Thankfully, humor doesn't depend on truth. Otherwise, we would have lost all sense of humor.