OHIO BUSINESS
Jury awards millions
A jury in Youngstown has ordered Nationwide Insurance to pay $42.8 million in damages to a former agent who sued the insurer, alleging that the company pressured her to resign and then took the business she had built.
“They were not blinded by Nationwide’s fancy talk,” said attorney Caryn Groedel of the jury in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court that awarded the damages to Christine Lucarell. “They got it.”
“It was incredibly emotional,” Lucarell said. “I never expected in a million years for the jury to award something like that.”
Nationwide said it will challenge the verdict. “Nationwide disagrees with the decision handed down in the Lucarell case and plans on filing an appeal,” spokeswoman Nancy Smeltzer said.
Lucarell, who lives in Boardman, near Youngstown, was among about 400 people Nationwide recruited across the country in 2005 as part of a three-year agency executive program. Groedel said Nationwide even lent each of them $200,000 to $300,000 to help start their business. Court documents indicate that Lucarell was told she could earn commissions topping $200,000 a year.
Lucarell’s agency flourished at first, but then Nationwide began setting exceedingly tougher production standards, and then told her she wasn’t on track to meet her goals, Groedel said. Nationwide began to withhold disbursements from the loan, cut commissions and finally terminated her agency in 2009, according to court documents that said Lucarell was left in financial distress. Lucarell said her car was repossessed, she lost a home to foreclosure, and her credit was ruined. “Everything I worked for, they took from me,” she said.
Nationwide then transferred the hundreds of new policyholders and the $1.8 million business that Lucarell had created to a Nationwide call center, retaining the commissions that would have gone to her, according to court documents.
The jury’s award included $36 million in punitive damages. Groedel said that sum represents about a tenth of Nationwide’s operating profit in the first half of 2012.
Groedel said she is ready to file a class-action lawsuit on behalf of seven other former agents.
Lucarell is working as a customer-service representative for another insurance agency in the area.
— Mark Williams, Columbus Dispatch
NATIONAL CALENDAR
November releases
• Monday — Bond markets are closed for Veterans Day. U.S. stock markets are open.
• Tuesday — In Washington, the Treasury Department releases federal budget figures for October.
• Wednesday — In Washington, the Commerce Department releases retail sales data for October.
Also, the Labor Department releases the Producer Price Index for October; the Commerce Department releases business inventory reports for September, and the Federal Reserve releases minutes from its October interest-rate meeting.
• Thursday — In Washington, the Labor Department releases weekly jobless claims; Freddie Mac, the mortgage company, releases weekly mortgage rates; the Labor Department releases its Consumer Price Index report for October.
• Friday — The Federal Reserve releases industrial production for October.
• Monday, Nov. 19 — The National Association of Home Builders releases its housing market index for November; the National Association of Realtors releases existing home sales for October.
• Tuesday, Nov. 20 — The Commerce Department releases housing starts for October.
• Wednesday, Nov. 21 — The Labor Department releases weekly jobless claims; Freddie Mac releases weekly mortgage interest rates; the Conference Board releases leading indicators for October, 10 a.m.