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McKennon Law Group PC is proud to announce that Robert J. McKennon was selected by ACQ Magazine as its ACQ Global Awards winner forINSURANCE LITIGATION LAWYER OF THE YEARfor 2018.ACQ Magazine is a leading corporate magazine that has been serving the finance and legal sector since 2003, and has a Global audience of over 168,000 subscribers.
Los Angeles Daily Journal Publishes Small Firm Profile on the McKennon Law Group PC Entitled “Shifting Allegiance: No Longer Insurers’ Advocates, McKennon Law Group Attorneys Stand Up for Policyholders”
In the May 7, 2018 issue of the Los Angeles Daily Journal, Daily Journal Staff Writer Melanie Brisbon authored a “small firm profile” article on the McKennon Law Group PC. The article covers the firm’s path to success, starting with its unconventional background: several of the firm’s attorneys left established careers defending insurance companies before “shifting allegiance” to represent insureds, policyholders and claimants. The firm started with three lawyers, including founding partner Robert J. McKennon and senior associate Scott E. Calvert. Now, the firm consists of five attorneys and has a thriving practice in insurance litigation representing policyholders, especially involving life, health and disability insurance cases governed by insurance bad faith or ERISA. The text portion of the profile is reprinted in full below.
This article is posted with the permission of the Los Angeles Daily Journal.
Shifting Allegiance
No longer insurers’ advocates, McKennon Law Group attorneys stand up for policyholders.
By Melanie Brisbon
Daily Journal Staff Writer
Insurance policyholders throughout the country call McKennon Law Group PC for counsel in complex conflicts with their insurers.
The five-attorney outfit in Newport Beach has secured many favorable results for its clients through settlements, trials and alternative dispute resolution.
“Our specialty is bad faith insurance litigation and [Employee Retirement Income Security Act] litigation involving insurance and pension issues, focused mostly on disability insurance, health insurance and life insurance claims,” said Robert J. McKennon, the firm’s founding and name partner.
Complex legal issues with insurers don’t intimidate McKennon Law Group. In fact, three of the firm’s lawyers, including its founding partner, used to advocate for the insurers. McKennon defended insurance companies for nearly 25 years as an attorney and partner at Barger & Wolen LLP. He changed sides in 2010 and created McKennon Law Group two years later.
“My heart was always sort of with claimants and policyholders because I saw a lot of claimants and policyholders when I was on the defense side getting poor representation by plaintiffs lawyers,” McKennon said.
“Secondly, I was hired by a few insurance companies in difficult bad faith cases while I was on the defense side and they asked me to get involved in mock trials as a plaintiff’s attorney in bad faith disability insurance cases,” he added. “In every mock trial that I did, I ended up winning substantial damages and it whet my appetite to start to work on the plaintiff’s side doing policyholder litigation.”
Challenges arose when McKennon decided to represent plaintiffs instead of insurance companies. For starters, he was known as a lawyer who represented insurance companies.
“One of my biggest challenges was getting my name out there to prospective insureds who I would now represent and also to lawyers letting them know I was now representing policyholders against insurance companies in primarily life, health and disability matters,” McKennon said. “The way I did that was communicating with a number of lawyers that I knew in Orange County especially, letting them know that I was now suing insurance companies.”
Marketing strategies also helped McKennon overcome the challenges.
“I developed a very strong and vibrant website and insurance litigation blog,” he said. “I started doing a lot of blogging and my lawyers do a lot of writing and blogging.”
The firm started with three lawyers, including associate Scott E. Calvert, who McKennon hired at Barger & Wolen.
“He hired me for my first job out of law school,” Calvert said. “Talking to him and seeing the fulfillment he got in working for policyholders made me think that might be something I would want to do too.”
More business started coming in and the firm added more lawyers—Joseph S. McMillen, David S. Rankin and Stephanie L. Talavera.
In a federal court case, McKennon Law Group represented a former lawyer who sought long-term disability benefits under his employer’s welfare benefit plan based on a “mental breakdown,” according to court documents.
The plan was funded by an insurance policy which set forth the eligibility requirements for receipt of benefits. The insurer denied the benefit claim after concluding that McKennon Law Group’s client was not totally disability during the entire period set forth in the eligibility requirements, court documents say.
“The insurer felt that he was able to work, and after we won the case at trial, they found some records that he actually represented himself in his own divorce proceeding and in a post-trial proceeding. They tried to use that against him saying he wasn’t disabled,” McKennon said. “We were able to convince the court to disregard that evidence.”
The insurer appealed the judgment to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which upheld the lower court’s decision and awarded attorney fees.
In another case, McKennon Law Group represented a plaintiff who sued his health insurer, claiming his daughter was covered under an ERISA-governed health plan issued by a large insurance company.
The plaintiff alleged the child required residential rehabilitation substance abuse treatment for a variety of problems. The insurer denied the claim, saying additional residential treatment was not medically necessary under the plan, according to court documents.
The court found in favor of the firm’s client and awarded him $113,000 plus prejudgment interest, along with substantial attorney fees and costs.
“We obviously have to look at and provide sufficient medical information that our client is disabled, but we also have to prove that our client is disabled under a particular definition under a particular contract,” McKennon said. “Depending on whether we are litigating an ERISA-governed insurance policy, versus a policy that is governed by California law or some other state law, the legal proof will differ.”
“We have to be comfortable with laws of various states in order to litigate disability, life or health insurance issues in California and in other states.”
Business litigation is also one of the firm’s practice areas.
Erwin J. Shustak, managing partner of Shustak Reynolds & Partners PC, first met McKennon as opposing counsel.
“Robert McKennon was an adversary of mine probably six years ago in a large arbitration dispute,” Shustak said. “He won the case and did an excellent job for his client. I was so impressed with him that years later I hired him to represent me in a personal matter.”
Los Angeles Daily Journal Publishes Article Profiling McKennon Law Group PC’s Respected Reputation in Policyholder Advocacy
On May 7, 2018, the Los Angeles Daily Journal published an article on the firm, entitled “Shifting Allegiance: No Longer Insurers’ Advocates, McKennon Law Group Attorneys Stand Up for Policyholders.” (See our Insurance Litigation Blog for the full article) The article details the firm’s history of success, including the reasons why Robert J. McKennon, the firm’s founder, left behind a successful career defending insurers to start a small, plaintiff-side firm representing insureds. As the article discusses, Mr. McKennon defended insurance companies for nearly twenty-five years as an attorney and partner at Barger & Wolen LLP. In 2010, he started representing policyholders and two years later, he founded the McKennon Law Group PC. Since then, the firm has cultivated a highly respected practice and reputation for aggressively pursuing wrongfully denied insurance benefits in both insurance bad faith cases and matters governed by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 or “ERISA.” With a focus on life, health and disability insurance cases, the firm treats each case with compassion, as Mr. McKennon acknowledges that his “heart was always sort of with claimants and policyholders[.]” Now no longer insurers’ advocates, the McKennon Law Group attorneys rely on that heart, as well as hard work, experience and dedication, to stand up for policyholders and claimants and get them the insurance benefits they deserve.
Robert McKennon Quoted in Super Lawyers’ Article: Does Suicide Invalidate an Insurance Claim?
On February 2, 2018, Robert J. McKennon, founding shareholder of McKennon Law Group PC, shared his insurance expertise with Trevor Kupfer of Super Lawyers for an article on important clauses in insurance policies entitled “Does Suicide Invalid an Insurance Claim? It All Depends on the Language in the Policy.” “Super Lawyers,” one of the most important and prestigious ratings services in the United States, that recognizes the top 5% of outstanding lawyers, published the article on its website. Mr. McKennon, an attorney who has practiced for over 30 years and mostly represents policyholders in life, health and disability insurance matters, has been a recognized Super Lawyer every year since 2011. He is an expert in insurance coverage and ERISA litigation. In this article he commented on clauses that regularly appear in life and accident insurance policies, such as suicide clauses, incontestability clauses, and accidental death clauses. The article can be found here.
Attorneys’ Fee Awards in ERISA Cases: McKennon Law Group PC Gets A Large One
Most employee benefits are governed by a federal law called the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (“ERISA”), including life insurance, health insurance, disability insurance, pensions and other benefits offered by employers to their employees through their employee benefit plans. Sometimes the plan, or an insurance company if the plan’s benefits are funded by an insurance policy, wrongfully refuses to pay benefits that are due to an employee. If an employee files a successful ERISA lawsuit to collect his plan benefits, he is entitled to recover his attorneys’ fees incurred in the lawsuit. The applicable ERISA statute, 29 U.S.C. section 1132(g)(1), states: “In any action under this subchapter . . . by a participant, beneficiary, or fiduciary, the court in its discretion may allow a reasonable attorney’s fee and costs of action to either party.” In Hardt v. Reliance Standard Life Ins. Co., 560 U.S. 242 (2010), the Supreme Court interpreted that statute and concluded a plan participant is entitled to recover his “reasonable attorneys’ fees” if he achieves some degree of success on the merits of the case.
That begs the question. What are reasonable attorneys’ fees in an ERISA case? The hourly rates charged by ERISA lawyers and the amount of time spent on a case can vary greatly, depending on the experience, skill and reputation of the attorney involved and the complexity of the matter. Hourly rates of up to $700 for highly experienced attorneys have been approved for ERISA cases by California federal district courts, including fee awards in the multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The McKennon Law Group PC recently obtained such an award in Reddick v. Metro. Life Ins. Co., No. 3:15-CV-02326-L-WVG, 2018 WL 637938 (S.D. Cal. Jan. 31, 2018), where the Court approved its hourly rates of up to $700 and awarded it 100% of its fees, almost $300,000. We prevailed in that ERISA lawsuit filed against Metropolitan Life Insurance Company (“MetLife”), our client’s group long-term disability insurer, after MetLife terminated his benefits. Our client was a financial advisor that could no longer perform his job duties because of debilitating, post-surgical low back pain and impaired concentration caused by his pain medication. On the eve of trial, after the McKennon Law Group PC prevailed on two critical evidentiary motions, the disability insurer capitulated and agreed to pay our client all his benefits. The insurer, however, offered to pay just a small fraction of the firm’s attorneys’ fees and costs, contending they were unreasonable in amount. We promptly filed a motion to recover our attorney’s fees, which MetLife vigorously opposed.
On January 31, 2018, in a detailed 11-page opinion, the Honorable Judge M. James Lorenz of the United States District Court for the Southern District of California granted our motion. The Court ordered MetLife to pay 100% of our attorneys’ fees (and some costs), together totaling $294,391. Judge Lorenz concluded that the firm’s hourly rates of $700, $600 and $290 for Robert McKennon, Joseph McMillen and Stephanie Talavera, respectively, are reasonable for ERISA work given their strong experience and outstanding abilities, including decades handling insurance coverage, ERISA and bad faith insurance lawsuits. Judge Lorenz concluded that every minute of the firm’s time spent on the case was reasonable and recoverable from the disability insurer, MetLife:
[C]onsidering the quality of the work produced by [McKennon Law Group PC] and the successful result obtained, the Court finds reasonable the 515.1 hours counsel spent on this case.
Key Take Away
You should hire an experienced ERISA lawyer to represent you if your claim for life, health, disability or pension benefits is denied, even if they are more expensive than a less qualified lawyer. The law permits you to recoup your reasonable attorneys’ fees from the insurer or plan that wrongfully denied your benefits. Thus, it is the insurer that will end up paying for your better-quality representation, not you. In the Reddick v. MetLife case, our client was able to keep 100% of his long-term disability insurance benefits.
If your claim for short-term disability, long-term disability, life, retirement or health benefits has been denied, you can call (949) 387-9595 for a free consultation with the attorneys of the McKennon Law Group PC, several of whom previously represented insurance companies and are exceptionally experienced in handling both ERISA insurance claims and non-ERISA California insurance bad faith claims.
Robert J. McKennon Recognized as 2018 “Super Lawyer – Insurance Coverage” and “Top 100 Insurance Lawyers in the State of California” for 2018
McKennon Law Group PC is proud to announce that its founding shareholder Robert J. McKennon has been recognized as one of Southern California’s “Super Lawyers” and appears in the 2018 edition of Southern California Super Lawyers magazine published in January 2018. Mr. McKennon has received this prestigious designation every year since 2011. Mr. McKennon was voted by his peers for this award and he was recognized forheand his excellence in representing its life, health and disability policyholder clients.Each year, Super Lawyers magazine, which is published in all 50 states and reaches more than 14 million readers, names attorneys in each state who attain a high degree of peer recognition and professional achievement. The Super Lawyer designation is given to less than 5% of lawyers nationally after being nominated and voted on by their peers.
In addition, the American Society of Legal Advocates has recognized Mr. McKennon as one of the top 100 Insurance lawyers in the State of California for 2018.Mr. McKennon has received this designation every year since 2013. The American Society of Legal Advocates is an invitation-only, nationwide organization of top lawyers in practice today who combine excellent legal credentials with a proven commitment to community engagement and the highest professional standards.
