Bobby N. Harmon, CPCU, ARM
March 4, 2005
VIA fax @ 808-523-6001
e-mail: mat@torkildson.com
Matt A. Tsukazaki, Esq.
Torkildson Katz Fonseca Jaffe Moore & Hetherington
AmFac Tower, 700 Bishop Street, Floor 15
Honolulu, HI 96813
RE: Notice of New Claims Against Torkildson Katz Fonseca Jaffe Moore & Hetherington; Settlement Proposal for All Claims
Dear Mr. Tsukazaki:
This is with regard to your letter dated March 1, 2005, in which you write regarding my letter of February 7, 2005, addressed to the Trustees of Kamehameha Schools and CEO Dee Jay Mailer:
“As you know, my law firm represents Kamehameha Schools in all matters that involve your former employment with Kamehameha Schools and the entry and enforcement of the Settlement, Release and Indemnification Agreement (the “Agreement”) between you and Kamehameha Schools.
“In response to your letter dated February 7, 2005, you are again reminded that all issues, claims, causes of action, and allegations, relating to or arising out of your former employment with Kamehameha Schools and/or asserted in the various legal proceedings involving yourself and Kamehameha Schools, its former and present Trustees, officers and employees, have been released and are barred under the Agreement. No further response is necessary nor will be provided to your letter of February 7, 2005.
“Finally, you are again instructed not to communicate directly with Kamehameha Schools and/or any of its Trustees, officers or employees about this matter. All correspondence from you on this matter should be directed to my attention at the address above. Thank you for your anticipated cooperation.”
Mr. Tsukazaki, my letter of February 7, 2005, was, as you know, an offer to negotiate an out-of-court settlement of NEW CLAIMS of fraud, racketeering, etc. against Kamehameha Schools and P&C Insurance Company, which were NOT released by the Settlement, Release and Indemnification Agreement. In my letter to the Trustees and CEO Dee Jay Mailer dated March 1, 2005, I gave several reasons why I could not accept your declination of my claims. Since I sent you a copy of that letter to Kamehameha Schools, I will not repeat these reasons in this letter. However, since I still have not received any response from your Professional Liability Insurance carrier with regard to my previous Notices of Claims against you and your law firm, I am going to provide you with a couple of additional “Wrongful Acts” that I had hoped to discuss directly, and confidentially, with your insurance carrier.
First, as I have stated to you in the past, you are not a licensed Claims Adjuster and you are not authorized to deny my claims against Kamehameha Schools, P&C Insurance Company, your law firm, or any other entity. Your latest letter dated March 1, 2005, denying my claims settlement proposal, is yet another fraudulent, deceptive, and illegal act under Hawaii’s insurance statutes. In my letter to Kamehameha Schools, I simply made a settlement proposal which I expected would, under the terms of the usual Professional Liability Insurance policy, be submitted to Kamehameha’s insurance carrier. That carrier then would be required, under Hawaii insurance statutes, to respond to this notice within 15 working days. Your notification to me that you were rejecting my settlement proposal was, therefore, yet another new “Wrongful Act”. This, then, is the reason for my filing this NEW CLAIM against you and your law firm, and I ask that you immediately report this claim to YOUR insurance carrier.
Second, I continue to believe that I have the right, under the First Amendment, to report these NEW CLAIMS directly to the parties against whom they are made. There is no way that I, or any other claimant, can know, prior to submitting a new claim, which law firm, if any, will be engaged to respond to the claim. This selection of a law firm is normally done by the insurance carrier, perhaps with the concurrence of the insured in certain cases. In the unlikely event that the insurance carrier were to engage your firm to handle these new claims against Kamehameha Schools and P&C Insurance Company, I would require you to produce a copy of the engagement letter prior to entering into any settlement discussions with your firm.
Third, it is clear to me that your firm has violated my attorney-client privilege by dealing directly with my former attorneys, Bradley Tamm and Greg Dunn, without my permission. Mr. Tamm’s facsimile of April 6, 2002, addressed to you, Susan Tius and Steven Guttman, gives undeniable evidence of this breach.
Another example of this breach of attorney-client privilege is your letter dated March 6, 2001, addressed to Bradley R. Tamm, Esq., in which you state, “Although I understand that you no longer represent Mr. Harmon, enclosed please find a copy of Mr. Harmon’s letter to me dated March 4, 2001. I am sending you a copy of this letter because Mr. Harmon has attributed certain statements to you of which you should be made aware.” A copy of your letter dated March 6, 2001, addressed to Bradley R. Tamm, and a copy of my letter of March 4, 2001, to which you referred, are enclosed. I ask that you immediately forward copies of these documents to your insurance carrier to assist in their investigation and evaluation of my claims.
Fourth, I was advised by Bradley Tamm, in a letter to me dated January 29, 2001, that “Once Greg [Dunn] and I have withdrawn, you can communicate with anyone you want to, and they can no longer refuse and ask you to go through your attorney as you will be your own attorney.” I accepted this advice, and, after the untimely withdrawal of Mr. Tamm and Mr. Dunn as my attorneys, I proceeded to contact various parties directly in order to attempt to obtain answers to unresolved issues, such as the characterization of the settlement as wages. Then, when your firm refused to answer my legitimate inquiries regarding these matters, I was wrongfully forced to repeat my requests for this information time and time again. And, since you, rather that a licensed Claims Adjuster, were improperly handling these claims matters for Kamehameha Schools, you did not have the authority to resolve these problems - which your firm initially created - and so you began to demand that I cease my so-called “letter-writing campaign,” and, ultimately, you made your demand to Trustee Woo that she initiate the expensive, self-serving, and unnecessary demand for arbitration. Had you, and Louanne Kam, simply submitted my original wrongful termination counterclaim to Federal Insurance Company, rather than improperly handling this yourselves without the required approval of the insurance carriers, I maintain that this original claim could have been settled within a few weeks, rather than spawning my RICO lawsuit, and my subsequent bankruptcy, and the arbitration proceedings. Instead, these claims and disputes have remained unresolved for over eight years - largely due to the misrepresentations of your law firm that you were authorized by Federal Insurance Company to negotiate the settlement of these lawsuits.
Since time is valuable, and since I truly wish to get on with my life, I am hereby presenting to your law firm, and to your Professional Liability Insurance carrier(s), the following Settlement Proposal:
To settle ALL OUTSTANDING CLAIMS against Torkildson Katz Fonseca Jaffe Moore & Hetherington, and all persons, both past and present, employed directly by this firm, and any and all insurance carriers for this firm, I will accept THE SUM OF SEVEN HUNDRED & TWENTY-FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS ($725,000).
Any of the terms and conditions in this Settlement Proposal are negotiable – provided that I be notified before March 15, 2005, that you and your insurance carrier(s) are willing to enter into good-faith negotiations to try to resolve these long-outstanding claims against your company.
Additional background information regarding many of these various claims can be found at the following internet addresses:
www.the-catbird-seat.net/Claims-By-Harmon.htm
www.the-catbird-seat.net/Claims-Branch-Kamehameha.htm
www.the-catbird-seat.net/Claims-Branch-P-C.htm
www.the-catbird-seat.net/Claims-Branch-Torkildson-Katz.htm
Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions.
Thank you very much for your consideration of this offer to attempt to negotiate a final settlement in this case.
Very truly yours,
Bobby N. Harmon, CPCU, ARM
cc: Mary Lou Woo, c/o Steven Guttman, Kessner Duca Umebayashi, et al.
(via fax @ 808-529-7177 and e-mail: sguttman@kdubm.com)
Dee Jay Mailer, CEO, Kamehameha Schools (via fax @ 808-523-6313)
Board of Directors, P&C Insurance Co., Inc. (via fax @ 808-523-6313)