Norman E. Siegel

The policy let State Farm deduct that charge every month, along with rider charges and a monthly expense charge. Vogt alleged that State Farm’s rates also took in factors the clause did not list: taxes, profit assumptions, investment earnings, and capital and reserve requirements. He sued in June 2016 in the Western District of Missouri, with Norman E. Siegel of Stueve Siegel Hanson and John J. Schirger of Miller Schirger as co-lead counsel. Judge Nanette K. Laughrey certified a class of about 25,000 Missouri owners of policies on the same form, bought between 1994 and 2004.

Trial began on June 1, 2018. A Jefferson City jury returned a verdict of $34,333,495.81 for the class.

All Nine Digits

In 2017, Equifax announced a breach of the personal information of almost 150 million Americans: all nine digits of their Social Security numbers, with their names, dates of birth and addresses. On February 12, 2018, Judge Thomas W. Thrash Jr. of the Northern District of Georgia named Siegel co-lead counsel for consumers, and Siegel chaired the plaintiffs’ settlement committee.

The global settlement announced on July 22, 2019, with the Federal Trade Commission, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the states, required Equifax to pay at least $575 million and potentially up to $700 million. For the class of about 147 million people, Equifax agreed to pay $380.5 million into a fund, and up to $125 million more if needed for out-of-pocket losses. Class members could claim up to $20,000 in documented losses, four years of credit monitoring from all three bureaus followed by six years from one, and seven years of identity-restoration services. Equifax also agreed to spend at least $1 billion on data security over five years. Judge Thrash approved the settlement on January 13, 2020, and on June 3, 2021, the Eleventh Circuit upheld the approval.

Seventy-Six Million Subscribers

On August 16, 2021, T-Mobile announced a cyberattack that had taken names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers and driver’s license information. In November, it raised its count of the current, former and prospective subscribers affected from 50 million to 76.6 million.

The suits were consolidated before Judge Brian C. Wimes in the Western District of Missouri as In re T-Mobile Customer Data Security Breach Litigation, with Stueve Siegel Hanson as one of three interim co-lead counsel firms. On July 22, 2022, T-Mobile agreed to pay $350 million to fund class members’ claims and to spend an additional $150 million on data security and related technology in 2022 and 2023. The court appointed Siegel settlement class counsel with lawyers from Keller Rohrback and Hausfeld. The settlement provided monetary relief, credit monitoring and assistance for victims of identity fraud, and by January 2023 more than 1.5 million claims had been filed. Judge Wimes granted final approval on June 29, 2023. Payments to class members began in May 2025.

When the Claims Stopped

On February 21, 2024, a hacker group known as ALPHV/Blackcat got into the computer systems of Change Healthcare, a major processor of health-care claims, and deployed ransomware. Physicians and practices across the country could not submit claims or receive payment for claims they had already submitted.

On June 7, 2024, the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation centralized about 50 of the resulting lawsuits before Judge Donovan W. Frank in Minnesota as In re Change Healthcare Customer Data Security Breach Litigation. One track belongs to patients whose data was allegedly stolen; the other belongs to providers who allege harm from the suspension of claims processing and from the delays and denials of reimbursement that followed. Siegel is one of three co-lead counsel for the provider track, with E. Michelle Drake and Warren Burns.

From the Attorney General’s Office to Kansas City

Siegel earned his law degree at Washington University in St. Louis in 1993 and began his career as an assistant attorney general at the Missouri Attorney General’s Office. He became a partner at the firm now known as Dentons, and in 2001 he started Stueve Siegel Hanson in Kansas City. His earlier class settlements include $131 million in a securities class action against Sprint Nextel Corp. and $44.5 million for customers of the collapsed Peregrine Financial Group. He has served on the boards of the Healthcare Foundation of Greater Kansas City, the Kansas City Bar Foundation and the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum.

“Based On”

State Farm appealed. On June 26, 2020, the Eighth Circuit held that the phrase “based on” in the cost-of-insurance clause “is at least ambiguous” and “must be construed in favor of Vogt.” Judge Bobby E. Shepherd wrote for a panel with Judges L. Steven Grasz and Jonathan A. Kobes. The court affirmed the class certification and the verdict and, on Vogt’s cross-appeal, held that the policy’s 4 percent rate governed prejudgment interest. “We obviously think that Judge Laughrey got it right in the trial court,” Siegel said, adding that “we’re pleased that the 8th Circuit saw it the same way.”

On April 19, 2021, the Supreme Court denied State Farm’s petition for review. On remand, Judge Laughrey awarded $4,521,674.38 in prejudgment interest, and on December 8, 2021, the Eighth Circuit affirmed.

In Rogowski v. State Farm Life Insurance Co., eleven named plaintiffs, among them David M. Rogowski and Elizabeth A. Bally, claimed that State Farm’s cost-of-insurance deductions on its flexible premium adjustable whole life and universal life policies did not match the policy language. After nearly seven years of litigation in ten jurisdictions, the claims settled nationwide in 2022 for $325 million, with Siegel among the policyholders’ counsel. Judge Roseann A. Ketchmark of the Western District of Missouri gave final approval in April 2023.

After the 2020 ruling in Vogt’s case, Siegel said that “if you want to charge for it, you need to put it in the contract.”