The main text of the complaint is only 26 pages; however, the many exhibits consist of 548 of 580 pages – the Allstate R3001S contract together with several attachments (mainly, rules and regulations of the company) alone claims 422 pages. Plaintiff alleged that Allstate would not let him sell his economic interests (say, 10%) of his book of business (with a premium sum of $1,907,497 and a retention rate of 93%+), which he had built from the scratch in three years (2013-16), to an existing Allstate agent – which can easily fetch a sales price of $476,874.25 (= $190,749.7 x 2.5 multiplier) in 2015/16. Allstate demanded that his book could only be sold to an outside qualified buyer. He had several qualified buyers but could not receive approval from Allstate within the timeframe of 90 days to close a deal. He asked for an extension and was rejected by Allstate. In his view, Allstate had violated the Florida Statute §626.754 in forbidding him from serving his customers and receiving commission payments after termination. Allstate went ahead forfeiting his book without paying him a dime.
Two other issues are of concern. Was the plaintiff guilty of a major misconduct or a minor infraction? The offense is not clearly stated in the termination letter. Was the plaintiff given a chance of defensing himself? Was he provided evidence of his wrongdoings? Granting the fact that a company of the private sector does not need to provide due process for termination, it does raise the suspicion that Allstate acted arbitrarily, and its goal was to pocket the value of the economic interest of the book. The second concern is that, during the 90 days after termination, Allstate would tolerate another Allstate agents to raid the customers of the plaintiff’s book.
The case was remanded back to the circuit court, filings of which were not available to us now. We shall update the content, once available.
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