Another Moldy Conclusion

Another timely loose end being wrapped up as Joe Nixon busts a move out of his increasingly Democratic State Rep district into a much safer State Senate district. Last time, it was a church rebuilding after their initial ministry had all been destroyed due to Joe Nixon's unethical legal antics.

This time, it's due to the Farmers Insurance Group's national mold manager being unduly fired for questioning excessive payments made to Nixon ... for being "a friend of Farmers" no less.

Casey adds a bit about Nixon's erstwhile "courtroom" adversary over at Oak Ridge Baptist Church:

Ironically, at the time this controversy broke, Nixon, who is a lawyer, was representing another insurance company that was fighting a severe mold claim by Oak Ridge Baptist Church, near Spring.

That insurance company, Utica Lloyd's of Texas, didn't get off as lightly as Farmers.

"We tried the case and got about a $5.2 million judgment, and they paid us," said Fred Hagans, attorney for the church.

At the time, Hagans suggested that Nixon was brought into the legal team simply for his power to obtain a "legislative continuance." Because the Legislature was in session, the trial was delayed.

Nixon insists that was not the reason he joined other lawyers from his firm on the case, and he says he was not paid "extra" for the continuance.

"I actively participated in the trial," he said.

Hagans admits Nixon conducted a few examinations and cross-examinations but not nearly as many as his colleagues in the five-week trial.

"One was me, on my attorney's fees," said Hagans. Based on testimony by the winning lawyers, and sometimes by experts, the jury decides how much the losing defendant must pay the lawyers for the other side.

"His examination was so withering that the jury awarded us every penny we asked for," said Hagans.

That must have been some powerful litigatin' done by our boy Nixon! Good thing he was run out of his prior law firm and landed safely into the arms of another one (where he's wearing out yet another welcome).

Of course, the other side looks at this and takes a baffling conclusion ....

Chronicle metro/state editorialist and gossip columnist Rick Casey is up to his usual antics today:

NOBODY is saying state Rep. Joe Nixon improperly pressured Farmers Insurance Group two years ago to pay him more than he had coming in a settlement over severe mold damage to his home.

Nobody is saying it, but the Chronicle's gossip columnist is just throwing it out for fun.

Fun? Try context. Had the reader read the parts not bothered with in Kevin's excerpt, they'd see that it was the very charge made by Isabelle Arnold that served as the smoking gun in the very case she won. So it's not just for kicks and grins that the question is raised over Nixon's mysterious "gift" from Farmers Insurance.

But I guess it's more fun to just whine over columns that they find disagreeable rather than bother with getting a few facts straight about this report which was an investigation of Nixon ... not Farmers. Yes, Ronnie Earle (that bastion of partisanship according to Kevin in previous posts) looked and saw no wrongdoing by Nixon in accepting what amounts to a $300,000 bribe from Farmers.

Then again, I'm sure the other side is having fun in defending bribe-taking, unethical, power-mad politicians. Let the intellectual contortions continue unabated. Conservatism be damned.