Amputee Burn Victim's Case Against Factoring Companies is Dismissed

by Structured Settlement Watchdog®

The plaintiffs in Terrence Taylor et al v Structured Asset Funding et al, submitted a voluntary dismissal without prejudice on June 5, 2015. The court minutes indicate the the judge was going to dismiss all of the counts against the Defendants, prior to the voluntary withdrawal.

Dismissal without prejudice does not preclude further action by the Plaintiffs, nevertheless the dismissal is sure to be seen as a huge victory for Structured Asset Funding and any other Defendants, who did not previously settle. 

Despite the victory, Structured Asset Funding/ 123 Lump Sum says it is working as a company to put more controls in place and to improve overall industry perception, according to company principal Andrew Savysky who reached out to me Friday night.  I look forward to something in writing from Structured Asset Funding/ 123 Lump Sum/ISettlements, to describe in more detail what the company is doing which I will be happy to publish here.

It is important to know that Taylor is not a one-off case. The question of how effective the current structured settlement protection acts are is still on the table.  The figurative bartender/ patron relationship needs to be further explored in the context of the "best interest standard", when it comes to serial sellers.  There was no discovery conducted in the Taylor case, discovery about flaws in the system that allowed the nth transaction to go through,  that might have been beneficial for the greater good had the case not been dismissed. 

Should an annuitant be permitted to sell themselves and their dependent child into oblivion with the last line of defense a judge who, according to published docket entries in 2014, only allotted 1-2 minutes of his time per case for transfer hearings.

Judging by her comments the other day, one attorney for one currently writing structured settlement annuity issuer's outside counsel apparently feels that it's all on the annuitant and that doesn't say much for the system.   A business model based on profiteering at the expense of the ignorant or incompetent by an industry with little regulatory oversight and no professional licensing.  This is about people's financial livelihoods not the circus.

 

Such societal derision is what gave rise to loan sharking. In late 19th century America, the low legal interest rates made small loans unprofitable for banks and small-time lending was frowned upon by society, as a borrower of small loans was seen as an irresponsible person who could not manage a budget. Structured settlement factoring exists in part because of the possibility that some annuitant's credit is so bad that they cannot get loans.

But the system that is supposed to protect them is clearly failing in certain jurisdictions.