Cultivated Compendium

A recent documentary is highlighting the issue of racial bias in the juvenile justice system. In reporting a piece for the Connecticut Law Tribune, I learned that Connecticut is widely praised for making great steps in improving its juvenile justice system. But statistics show that, despite those reforms, racial bias hasn't been erased. More kids of color than white kids are sent into the system and sent into the system for longer.

Here's an excerpt of the full piece: 

By most accounts, Connecticut has made tremendous progress in reforming its juvenile justice system. But there's one serious problem remaining: racial disparities in the youths who are sent to juvenile lockups.

That's the thrust of a recent Connecticut Public Broadcasting Network documentary, a production sponsored by the Connecticut Juvenile Justice Advisory Committee and paid for with federal funds.

According to the documentary, police are 3.24 times more likely to write incident reports when they find a black juvenile misbehaving than when they have similar encounters with white kids. Latino juveniles are 2.4 times more likely to have incident reports filed about their actions than their caucasian counterparts.

Further, the documentary reported, prosecutors are far more likely to transfer black juveniles charged with serious, Class A and Class B felonies to adult court than their white counterparts. And the state Department of Correction is four times more likely to place a black youth who committed a serious offense in a secure juvenile facility than a white youth, and three times more likely to put a Latino teen in such a facility than a white teen.

The documentary, "The Color of Justice," focuses on data presented in a 2011 report by the state Office of Policy and Management. The report found that racial disparities were present in half of the 18 points in which decisions are made in the juvenile justice system.

"We've … accepted the data and we own it and we're each trying in our separate agencies or venues" to address the issue, said Superior Court Judge Bernadette Conway, the chief administrative judge of the juvenile division.

Cathy Jackman, the independent producer and editor of the documentary, said Connecticut is one of the states considered to be at the forefront of addressing the issue of racial bias in the juvenile justice system.

"I think that the state was actually very courageous in exposing themselves," said Jackman, who noted that while the documentary was government-sponsored, she retained editorial control. "The Office of Policy and Management did not have to reveal these numbers."

Marc Schindler, executive director of the national Justice Policy Institute, said Connecticut has implemented many best practices to reform juvenile justice. For example, the state has aggressively worked to move most 16- and 17-year-olds out of the adult court system, increased community-based programming, and reduced its reliance on incarceration when dealing with juvenile lawbreakers.

Connecticut is a "true turn-around story in many respects," Schindler said. "Through the '80s and '90s, Connecticut was known unfortunately for having a quite dysfunctional system for young people who got in trouble with the law." And this was in a state that is one of the wealthiest in the country, he said.

Given the success in improving other aspects of the juvenile justice system, Schindler said he's "optimistic" Connecticut will make progress on racial disparities.

The documentary emphasizes that racial disparities often are not the result of overt prejudice but stem from implicit bias.

"We only use a small portion of our brain consciously," said Conway, the juvenile judge. "When we interact with people we make unconscious, instantaneous judgments we may not be aware of."

Connecticut homeowners who still haven't been paid by their insurers over damage from Superstorm Sandy are running out of time to sue their insurers, I reported for the Connecticut Post and the Stamford Advocate.

Here's the full story:

Homeowners whose insurance companies still have not paid them for Superstorm Sandy damage and may need to sue their insurers will soon run out of time to do so.

Even though Connecticut law provides for six years for lawsuits to be filed over broken contracts, the state has a law on the books that lets insurers limit the time in which disputes about homeowner policies can be taken to court.

And it is industry practice to include in standard homeowners' insurance policies a time limitation on lawsuits, according to several Connecticut attorneys.

Ryan Suerth, a Hartford-based solo practitioner who represents policyholders in insurance disputes, said going to court is a "last-ditch effort" because no one wants to hire a lawyer after already going through a long process to try to get paid by one's insurer after a disaster.

But Suerth said "the only person who is going to look out for the policyholder" is the policyholder.

The law used to let insurers limit homeowners bringing lawsuits to within a year of disasters, but it was changed in 2009 to 18 months. Now homeowners' insurance disputes can't go to court unless they are started within "eighteen months next after inception of the loss," according to the statute.

"The moral of the story," says Leonard Isaac, an insurance litigator with law offices in Waterbury and West Hartford, is that "if your policy has a limit that's the minimum provided by Connecticut law, the lawsuit has to be served on the insurance company within 18 months of when your loss took place. That means it has to be delivered by the marshal to the insurance company by that time."

Policyholders thinking about taking their insurance company to court can't show up on a lawyer's doorstep a week before the deadline, Isaac said, because time has to be allowed for the lawsuit to be served on time to meet legal deadlines.

Isaac said he has had people consult him after major storms, particularly winter storms, when they've run out of time to sue. After major storms, many people think the "insurance company is moving slowly but they're moving," but then it can be too late to seek legal recourse, he says.

The National Flood Insurance Program, which is administered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, only allows for lawsuits to be filed within a year of a policyholder's loss, Suerth added.

Gerard O'Sullivan, program manager of the Insurance Department's consumer affairs unit, recommends that consumers who are having problems with their insurance claims call the department. It will see if they can mediate the claim and bring it to a conclusion without the need for litigation, O'Sullivan said.

Gregory Podolak, an attorney representing policyholders with Saxe Doernberger & Vita in Hamden, suggests policyholders crack open their policies and see if they have a limitation-of-suit provision in there.

If they are running up against a deadline, policyholders can see if their insurers will agree to "toll" that part of the contract, Podolak said. An agreement to temporarily put on hiatus the requirement that policyholders only can go to court within 18 months of when Sandy struck would allow insurers to avoid premature lawsuits, he said. That's especially the case if "you are adjusting your agreement in good faith and cooperation," Podolak said.

Isaac suggests that policyholders can use public adjusters to help negotiate with their insurance companies.

Michael McCormack, who represents policyholders as well as insurance industry clients in regulatory proceedings with Hinckley Allen & Snyder in Hartford, said that insurance companies limit the time in which lawsuits can be brought because they "don't want to be subject to a claim six years down the road. They want to have notice and resolve claims."

Not all claims against insurance companies are limited, but in these situations, things get more difficult quickly. Policyholders can still sue over truly wrongful behavior by insurance companies like acting in bad faith, McCormack said, but such behavior is rare and is harder to prove.

Suerth said he finds it unfair to allow contractual limitations on the six-year statute of limitations because it "doesn't help the policyholders and there are other insurance policies out there that don't have any limitations at all."

There are other insurance issues arising out of Superstorm Sandy that people may not be aware of, attorneys said.

Many policyholders are not aware that, without going to court, they can invoke a clause in their polices if they're in a dispute over the value of their loss, McCormack said. Connecticut law requires that disputes over the amount of loss in standard homeowners' police go to an outside neutral process called appraisal.

Insurance companies don't always advise their insureds that a dispute over the value of loss can be taken to this form of arbitration, Isaac said.

"Instead they say this is all we're going to pay. They say take it or leave it," Isaac said.

The appraisal process is more consumer-friendly because it's less expensive than litigation, McCormack said.

Isaac estimates that half of the disputes he sees are over the value of the loss.

Both the policyholders and the insurance company get an appraiser, and there is a neutral umpire to make a final determination on the claim's value.

Both parties pay for their own appraiser, and a neutral umpire is paid by both sides to decide the dispute over the value of the claim, O'Sullivan said.

Natural disasters like Sandy are a reminder to make sure people have the insurance coverage they want, insurance experts say.

"One of the important things of any catastrophe like this" is for people to determine if they are comfortable with their deductibles and to understand that flood insurance is separate from a homeowner's policy and must be obtained separately, O'Sullivan said.

Michael E. DiGiacomo, a forensic accountant with BlumShapiro in Shelton who often is called in to evaluate claims, said that his impression of Sandy is that many businesses did not have the proper insurance coverage in place to recover for their losses.

For example, businesses wanted to keep their insurance costs down and forewent coverage of the interruption of their businesses, DiGiacomo said.

"Sandy just brought that to light because of how devastating it was," DiGiacomo said.

In light of Sandy it might be a good idea for businesses to go over their policies with their brokers to make sure they have the coverage they want, DiGiacomo said.