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The following insurance companies and attorneys tried to con senior citizens. OneBeacon Insurance Company, C.U. York Insurance Company, and Peerless Insurance company; Attorney Gregory S. Clayton of Aten, Clayton and Eaton Law Firm, a Vermont and New Hampshire Law Firm, 106 Main St, Littleton, New Hampshire; Pietro J. Lynn, Attorney, of Lynn, Thomas & Mihalich, Attorneys, 7 Kilburn St., Suite 5, Burlington, VT. Lisa Chaldize, our former attorney, of 548 Herrick Rd, Benson, Vermont, who was in bed with the crooked insurance companies; Joan Loring Wing of 24 ½ Center St., Rutland, Vermont, Attorney, Mediator and Chair of Professional Responsibility Board of Vermont, also known as the Attorney Ethics Board of Vermont.
On December 9, 2004 the undersigned and my wife, Rosemary B. Brady, attended a mediation conference in Rutland, Vermont conducted by mediator Joan Loring Wing concerning our case against C.U. York Insurance Company and One Beacon Insurance Company, who were represented by Attorney Gregory S. Clayton. And J.W. & D.E. Ryan, Inc., defendants and their insurance company, Peerless Insurance Company were represented by Attorney Pietro J. Lynn. The plaintiffs were supposed to be represented by Attorney Lisa Chalidze. At the time we did not know OneBeacon selling its claims department to Liberty Mutual which also owned Peerless. Our insurance company was going through the ropes of suing itself and/or its partner! They wouldn't allow that, so they put the screws to us using these legal puppets to do their dirty work. Take a look at the tricks these walking conflict of interests tried to pull over on us.
Shortly after all the parties and attorneys arrived at the mediation conference, my wife and I were asked to sign a Mediation Agreement, a copy of which is attached hereto as Exhibit A. In paragraph 4, it states parties acknowledged that although mediator, Joan Loring Wing, is a licensed attorney, she is not practicing law and is not acting as an advisor to any of the parties. This statement is a lie! Click here to read her own words! I found out after the mediation conference that Attorney Wing did practice law at and prior to the date of the mediation conference of December 9, 2004, and has until the present time continued to practice law.
In addition to the misrepresentation of the above, Attorney Wing had a conflict of interest in this matter in that she and Attorney Lisa Chalidze were close friends and did legal business with each other prior to the mediation conference.
At the mediation conference we, the plaintiffs and our then attorney Lisa Chalidze were directed to a one room and the defendants and their attorneys were directed to another room. After going back and forth from one room to the other, mediator Wing came into the room where our attorney and we, the plaintiffs, were seated and she said to our attorney, “Here is the Stipulation of Settlement Agreement that the defendants and your clients have agreed to. Please have them sign it!” Our attorney examined the hand-written Stipulation of Settlement Agreement and told us to sign it. I examined the document and said to the mediator, Attorney Wing, that her statement that we agreed to the Stipulation of Settlement Agreement she presented to our attorney to have us sign was not true. I said to Attorney Wing that the document she asked us to sign has an indemnification clause and there never was any mention or discussion at any time of indemnification. Attorney Wing replied that we need not be concerned about the indemnification clause, that it is just the usual standard language used in this kind of settlement agreement.
I told the mediator, Attorney Wing, and our attorney Chalidze, that we would not sign the Stipulation of Settlement Agreement. I stated to our attorney and the mediator that our insurance company, One Beacon, had the clause in our insurance policy that gave it the right of subrogation and that, if our insurance company, One Beacon, sued Ryan the plumber (whose negligence caused the damage to our real and personal property), they could obtain a judgment for what was already paid to us by One Beacon as well as what was to be paid and, in that event, we would have to indemnify Ryan and, therefore, we would net zero in the case.
I said to my wife, “We might as well go home. The defendants are playing games.” The mediator then said, “Stay here, I will be right back.” She returned and submitted a settlement form which was the same as we previously refused to sign except the indemnification clause was crossed out. The changed was initialed by all the defendants. We, therefore signed the mediation contract and also initialed the change. (See Exhibit B below)
Attorney Wing, acting as mediator at the mediation conference and as the Chair of the Ethics Committee of Vermont, had a duty to not to try con us into signing a document that was not agreed upon by plaintiffs. Her assertion to our attorney in our presence, “Here is the Stipulation of Settlement Agreement that the defendants and your clients have agreed to” was false and Attorney Wing and our then Attorney Lisa Chalidze (a close friend of Attorney Wing) knew it was false.
The Stipulation of Settlement Agreement was prepared in the room occupied by defendant’s attorneys from which we, the plaintiffs and our attorney, were excluded. It was there that the indemnification clause must have been discussed by the defendant’s attorneys and mediator Wing. No one ever discussed the indemnification clause with us, the plaintiffs. The first time I ever heard of the indemnification clause or saw it was after mediator Wing asked our attorney to have us sign the Stipulation of Settlement.
Attorney Wing and our Attorney Chalidze and the attorneys Clayton and Lynn, representing the insurance companies, were all in this together in their attempt to settle our case whereby we, the plaintiffs, would receive zero.
Shortly after we signed the hand-written Stipulation of Settlement Agreement of December 9, 2004 that had the indemnification clause crossed off, we received a letter from Attorney Chalidze, dated December 22, 2004. Surprise! The release prepared by defendants’ attorneys Clayton and Lynn and sent to our attorney Chalidze had the indemnification clause reinstated, and our attorney Chalidze asked us to sign it. (See Exhibit C attached.)
I contacted Attorney Lisa Chalidze and asked her why she asked us, in her letter dated December 22, 2004, to sign the releases which contained the indemnification by us to Ryan, Inc. and his insurance company, Peerless, contrary to the signed mediation agreement of December 9, 2004. I stated, “You must be in bed with the defendants!” She never has answered that question. We fired her and thereafter wrote to the Superior Court of Vermont asking that the case be put back on for jury trial.
After Lisa Chalidze knew that we discovered the second attempt to con us, and after we fired her, she attempted to disassociate herself from the attorneys for the defendants and the mediator Wing. She wrote a letter dated January 14, 2005 to the Superior Court entitled Report on Release Issue, etals. She stated in her letter (Exhibit D attached)
“The undersigned (Lisa Chalidze) believes that the release presented by Attorney Lynn does not satisfy the settlement agreement in that it contains indemnity language which the parties expressly agreed to exclude from the releases by striking over the word “indemnity” as it had originally appeared in the sixth line of the hand-written settlement agreement, and initialing the changes in the margin.”
In addition to the unethical conduct of attorneys Clayton, Lynn, and Chalidze in attempting to con us to sign releases contrary to the mediation settlement of December 9, 2004, we have a violation by attorneys Clayton and Lynn of Rules of Professional Conduct, Rule 3.3 CANDOR TOWARD THE TRIBUNAL, (a) A lawyer shall not knowingly make a false statement of material fact or law to a tribunal or (4) offer evidence that the lawyer knows to be false.
Attached hereto is Exhibit E which is a letter dated January 17, 2005 sent by Attorney Lynn to the Chittenden Superior
Court which included a “Motion to Enforce Settlement Agreement” (together with his Exhibit A) compelling plaintiffs to execute the releases said attorney sent to the court which provides that we, the plaintiffs, agreed to hold harmless and indemnify J.W & D.E. Ryan, Inc and Peerless Insurance Company for any claims raised on account of any matter related to the above claim including any lien or other subrogated matter held by another. On the first page of his motion he stated that the parties reached a valid settlement on December 9, 2004 that should be enforced by the Court. The trouble with that statement to the Court is that Attorney Lynn and Attorney Clayton asked the Court to enforce a totally different release which provided for indemnification contrary to the settlement made on December 9, 2004. Attorney Lynn has intentionally misrepresented to the Court the terms of the December 9, 2004 settlement. (See my Exhibit B) The General Release that Attorney Lynn submitted to the Court, which he wanted the court to enforce, called for indemnification by plaintiffs to Ryan and his insurance company, Peerless, which was just the opposite from what was signed by all parties on December 9, 2004 which mediation settlement excluded indemnification.
On January 10, 2005, I wrote to the Superior Court and
stated that we, the plaintiffs, fired our attorney Lisa Chalidze and wanted the
case to be listed for jury trial due to the breach of the mediation contract by
the defendants, as well as other reasons.
On May 23, 2005 plaintiffs appeared Pro-se, Attorney Clayton appeared for
OneBeacon Insurance Company and Attorney Lynn appeared for
Peerless
Insurance
Company and their insured, Ryan Plumbing, before the Vermont Superior Court for
oral argument on defendants’ motion to compel plaintiffs to sign releases sent
to plaintiffs’ attorney on December 22, 2004, prepared by attorneys Clayton and
Lynn, which provided that plaintiffs indemnify Ryan Plumbing and their insurance
company, Peerless (contrary to the December 9, 2004 Stipulation of Settlement
Agreement which eliminated the indemnifying provision). In spite of the fact it
was a “hearing on motions and affidavits” previously submitted to the Court,
defendants’ attorneys produced Attorney Wing, the mediator, without notice to
the plaintiffs, to testify regarding threats which plaintiffs claimed were made
by Attorney Clayton on December 9, 2004 at the mediation conference conducted by
Mrs. Wing. She appeared voluntarily without a subpoena.
She denied criminal threats were made but she did not deny that Attorney Clayton threatened plaintiffs at the settlement conference that, if we did not settle the case that day (December 9, 2004), he would charge us with fraud and would file an amended answer and a counterclaim and demand that all money paid to us previously be returned to OneBeacon (our insurance company who previously asked us to commit fraud by claiming an additional date of loss so that the insurance company would get a $2000 deductible instead of a $1000 deductible. We refused to go along with the fraud and filed a criminal complaint with the Attorney General’s Office.)
Attorney Wing was present the entire hearing and was aware of the misrepresentations that attorneys for the defendants made to the Court, as well as the misrepresentations made by herself.
Mediator Joan Loring Wing violated her obligation as Chair of the Vermont Professional Responsibility Board in her failure to report to said board the conduct of Attorney Gregory S. Clayton, Attorney Pietro J. Lynn, Attorney Chalidze, as well as herself, Joan Loring Wing, as described herein.
The conduct of the above attorneys has caused us considerable time in preparing motions, affidavits, and examining the many motions made by defendants’ attorneys, preparing for and attending Court hearing, costs and attorneys fees, all because of the con game by the above four attorneys and the insurance companies named herein.
Edward J. Brady
Temple University School of Law, Class of 1950
Practiced Law in New Jersey from 1951 to the present day.
Bennett and Wingate, 1951
Burton and Seidman, 1952 to 1954, defended insurance companies
Edward Brady, 1954 to 1986,
Ian Stuart, of Counsel,
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