15 Years of Yarborough Applegate: From Denial to Justice, a Landmark Bad Faith Insurance Case

2025 marks Yarborough Applegate’s 15th anniversary. As we reflect on this milestone, we’re honoring the cases that defined us and the people who made them possible through our “15 Years of Yarborough Applegate” series, which spotlights the seminal and memorable moments that shaped our firm. These cases stand out for their impact, challenges, and collaboration. Today, we revisit our work on Kay Newman as Power of Attorney for Mattie Poston v. Bankers Life And Casualty Company.

In 2010, Yarborough Applegate took on a case that would come to shape our firm’s identity and ignite a new area of practice. It began when a family who had done everything right to prepare for the future was met with resistance, denial, and indifference from the insurance company they had trusted. Over the course of two years, we uncovered the truth, challenged a system built to say “no,” and fought tirelessly to hold that company accountable.

THE FAMILY AT THE HEART OF THE CASE

Mattie Poston was a beacon of her Park Circle, North Charleston community: generous, spirited, and the frequent baker of a beloved coconut cake. She and husband Herman were proud parents who were always careful with their finances and long-term planning. For years, they faithfully paid premiums on a Bankers Life long-term care policy designed to protect them in old age and ensure they’d never be a burden on their children. 

Herman passed away in 2004, and Mattie continued to pay premiums and keep every receipt and record, just as her husband had. But by 2009, her memory began to fail. After a doctor’s visit, she received a diagnosis: Alzheimer’s or dementia. The next day, she tripped and fractured her ankle. Her daughter, Kay Newman, and husband, David AvRutick, decided to place her in a nursing home. It was a difficult decision, but something Kay recognized was in her mother’s best interest—and should have been covered by her parents’ long-term care policy. But when the time came for that policy to deliver on its promise, the safety net suddenly evaporated. Mattie’s claim was denied.

RECOGNIZING INJUSTICE—AND TAKING A STAND

Kay and David began exploring their options, and approached Yarborough Applegate. We immediately saw this situation for what it was: a family who had done everything right, only to be steamrolled by corporate indifference. At the time, our firm was still in its early years and hadn’t yet directly handled many bad faith contract litigation cases. But we knew this was a fight we knew we had to take on.

The facts immediately spoke for themselves. Despite the family sharing years of meticulously kept records—including recent medical reports that noted Mattie was in a state where she could not care for herself, and that she had a disease of the brain that made her a harm to herself when left alone—Bankers Life claimed to lack what they needed to determine she was cognitively impaired. “They were provided even more information than what they requested, and they denied it anyway,” says co-founding partner David Yarborough.

As the case got underway, more information became available that revealed a pattern of negligence. When Yarborough traveled to Chicago to take depositions of the claims committee, he learned in the short afternoon session that included Mattie’s claim denial, the committee had also decided the fate of 13 other claims. They denied all 14 of those claims. When we calculated the length of the meeting against the number of claims reviewed, the numbers were shocking: the committee had spent on average four minutes per claim.

 For Kay, it was a gut-wrenching revelation. “I remember it vividly,” she says. “Hearing that and feeling sick, and then energized. Thinking, ‘we have to keep going. We have to stop these people.”

Adds Yarborough, “That’s four minutes they were spending before making decisions that were going to alter the lives of 14 families. And you have to understand the amount of information in each of these files. There are hundreds of pages of medical records. There is a 50-page insurance policy that is full of terms and conditions and definitions.” It was impossible for the committee to give each file the time it deserved and decide that many claims in such a short period of time.

“It became clear that the pattern and practice of this insurance company was to deny all claims and see who protests, and then maybe come back and reconsider—or deny again,” he adds. “And how many families out of those 14 claims went and got a lawyer, who then filed a lawsuit, and the lawyer then traveled to Chicago to take on these people?”

What’s more, when we presented Bankers Life veteran claims adjusters with all of this information that they had, they caved. They admitted on the spot that they had no justifiable reason to deny the claim, that they had everything they needed. They agreed that Mattie met all the conditions in terms of the policy. They agreed that it was a breach of the contract, as well as a breach of the duty of good faith and fair dealing that they owed to their policyholders. 

A PAPER FIGHT AND A BOLD NEW APPROACH

But before we got to Chicago, like so many cases, this one began with a paper fight. Requesting information and documents from the defendant and receiving back a mix of objections, claims of confidentiality, and at the very best a fraction of the documents we asked for. Sifting through it all to determine what might be missing. Filing a motion to compel with the court. 

“It’s an all-in, drag-out paper fight,” Yarborough says. “But that’s what we have to do. We have to constantly challenge them, because they say things and take positions as if they are truth—when they are anything but. It is a long and constant back-office fight to get to the point where you can travel to Chicago, take depositions, and question the people who actually made these decisions.”

Another pivotal moment in this case came in our decision to make an offensive motion for summary judgment, or asking the court to decide on an issue as a matter of law. It was an unexpected move, as it is a tool typically reserved for defendants and used against the plaintiff on their claims in an effort to have them thrown out. But here, we had great confidence in our case based on the depositions we had taken and the documents we had uncovered. And so we decided to move offensively for a determination of the issues by the judge, instead of leaving them all to the jury. We filed an offensive motion for the court to make a determination that Bankers Life had breached their contract, arguing it in Federal district court here in Charleston.

The court granted our motion for partial summary judgment on our breach of contract claims. “It was a major turning point in the momentum of the case,” Yarborough recalls. From that point forward, it was not a matter of if the defendant would pay, but how much. And, because the court had denied the defendant’s motion to dismiss our bad faith claims, under bad faith law, we were able to secure extra contractual damages for the emotional suffering the family had been through as a result of these denials. “They knew that number was going to be really, really big,” Yarborough says.

THE POWER OF SAYING NO

We had them where we wanted them—now it was time to end on our terms. Insurance companies may be notorious for saying “no.” But we knew they weren’t the only ones with that power. “When you believe in a cause, you not only have your principle to stand on, but you have the facts, the law, and common sense on your side,” says Yarborough. “When you have all that, it’s easy to say no. Because all the insurance companies understand is money.”

The defendant kept making financial offers and asking what it would take to settle. Yarborough recalls that Kay said, “I want you to stop. I want this insurance company to stop doing this to vulnerable people who have paid their premiums all of their lives, who have planned, who have saved, who have bought this policy as a safety net to protect them at a time in their lives when they are going to be unable to fight for themselves.” Yarborough wholeheartedly agreed with and backed Kay completely.

Ultimately an acceptable settlement was drawn up, save one clause: that all details of the case would be under strict confidentiality. For Kay, it was a non-starter. “If I can’t talk about it, we can go to trial,” she remembers saying. She drew her line in the sand: she would agree to the settlement on the condition that the testimony and other findings of the lawsuit remain open for public review.

“If it helped one family not to go through what we did, it was worth everything,” she says. “That comes from both of my parents: do the right thing, say the right thing, and help other people when you can.”

A LEGACY OF IMPACT 

This case, which settled in 2012, left an oversized impact on all involved. The family’s story, published in The Post and Courier as part of a Pulitzer Prize–winning series, resonated far and wide. Kay was contacted by families going through similar situations, seeking advice and support.

For Yarborough, it’s been a case that shaped the trajectory of his career. “This case lit a fire in me,” he says. “I don’t like an imbalance of power. I don’t think it’s right or fair, and luckily, I’m in a position to help.” And for our firm, the case marked the launch of our bad faith insurance practice, ensuring that others in this situation would have an advocate when they need it most. Ultimately, our win helped define Yarborough Applegate’s reputation as a firm that doesn’t back down, especially when real people are up against powerful corporate interests.