Ace American and Broadspire Services Bid for a Deposition Gag Order Rejected a Second Time

A Harris County District judge has for a second time rejected Ace and Broadspire’s request to impose a gag order in order to keep adjuster testimony secret. Ace and Broadspire initially objected to the placement of excerpts of adjuster depositions on our firm’s Youtube site, and moved for what amounts to a gag order to block any public accountability for Ace’s or the Broadspire adjuster’s misconduct. Their request was denied, and depositions ordered to proceed. See our April 30 blog report on the first rejection of this request.

Refusing to take No for an answer, the insurer and third party administrator asked for an emergency hearing on their second request for a gag order to block excerpts of the depositions of their adjusters, Ann Adams and Taboura Smith, from being placed on the Doyle website or on the firm’s Youtube site. This morning, this second request was denied. The depositions are expected to be completed within the next 30 days.

At this point, Ace and Broadspire appear to have put more effort into blocking accountability and testimony than they put into handling the claim properly. They certainly appear to have spent more money on lawyers than they did on properly paying the workers compensation insurance claim. The workers were both employees of BJ Services and were injured in an industrial incident in Victoria, Texas in 2007. The lawsuit filed in Harris County asserts that Ace and Broadspire wrongfully denied workers’ compensation benefits to these injured workers, and wrongfully assisted their employer in concealing the injuries.