Attorneys for two men who spent 17 years in prison after being wrongly convicted of rape filed court documents Thursday accusing Clark County’s risk manager and its insurance providers of working together to deny a multimillion dollar settlement.
Attorneys for Alan Northrop and Larry Davis, wrongly convicted of a 1993 rape, accuse the Washington Counties Risk Pool of exerting influence over Mark Wilsdon, the county’s risk manager. Among the allegations filed in Cowlitz County Superior Court are that Wilsdon passed along confidential legal information from the county to the risk pool’s executive committee.
Wilsdon, who is being represented by the county’s prosecuting attorney’s office, said he couldn’t comment on ongoing litigation.
Northrop and Davis’s counterclaim stems from a lawsuit filed last year by the Washington Counties Risk Pool against the two men and Clark County. The lawsuit claims the risk pool is not obligated to pay the men a multimillion dollar payout that was settled by Clark County attorneys.
Court documents filed by Northrop and Davis’s attorneys this week, however, accuse the risk pool of recruiting Wilsdon to act as a “mole” and a “mouthpiece” for the risk pool, at a time when the agency was fighting the county’s court settlement.
The 2013 settlement called for the county to pay Northrop and Davis $10.5 million. It also authorized the two men to sue the risk pool for an additional $24 million.
The risk pool — a coalition of Washington counties that purchase insurance as a group to cut costs — disputed that they were duty-bound to pay Northrop and Davis, arguing that the county was not a member of the pool at the time of the wrongful convictions.
Northrop and Davis were convicted of raping a woman in La Center in 1993. The county joined the risk pool in 2002. The two men were exonerated in 2010 following DNA testing that proved they hadn’t committed the crime.
Following the settlement in 2013, the risk pool threatened to rescind Clark County’s insurance coverage unless it reversed language in the settlement allowing Northrop and Davis to sue. The risk pool said such an obligation violated the county’s contract. The risk pool eventually yanked the county’s coverage in April. The county is now self-insured.
During the dispute between the county and the risk pool, Wilsdon informed the risk pool’s executive committee, on which he also sat, and the risk pool’s executive director, Vyrle Hill, of the county’s legal strategies, the claim alleges.
The claim also says the risk pool coerced the county by threatening to pull its coverage.
“The cronyism, corruption and violation of ethical, legal, and constitutional rules and duties evinced by Hill, (the insurance providers) and others with respect to these claims is unconscionable,” the claim says.
Attorneys for the risk pool could not be reached Friday. Hill said he was not authorized to comment on the legal action.
Attorneys for Northrop and Davis previously alleged that Washington Counties Risk Pool, along with two insurance providers — American International Group Inc. and its subsidiary, Lexington Insurance Co. — conspired to misrepresent the services the risk pool provides in order to avoid paying a share of the settlement.
The county is currently insured by Starr Indemnity and Liability Co.
