MetLife Hit With $15 Million In Punitives

A jury in California has awarded $15 million in punitive damages to an elderly woman who was lured into a Ponzi scheme by an insurance broker. Among the contentions in the plaintiff’s case was that the head of a MetLife office encouraged brokers to lure potential clients into the “Diversified Lending Group,” whose founder owed him hundreds of thousand of dollars. Metlife plans to appeal, reports Courtroom Connect. It had argued that the company had no knowledge of the scheme, that the plaintiff was not a Metlife client, and that the agent who pushed the DLG investment was a wayward contractor whom it had no duty to supervise. This case was originally filed as a class action on behalf of 97 investors, but a judge denied it class action status. More individual cases are expected to be filed, the next one in November.