I’m not able to come to the computer today, so instead I’ll just tell you a story. According to the person who told me this story, every word is true and verifiable. Since I’m not a lawyer (nor do I play one on TV), please make allowances for an incorrect term or two.

A lawyer bought a very rare box of 24 Cuban cigars, paying quite a lot of money for them. His first act upon getting them home was to obtain a comprehensive insurance policy on the purchase, covering everything from flood damage to fire.

After the insurance policy went into effect, he opened the box and proceeded to smoke every single one of the cigars. Here’s the kicker – the next day, before even having made the first payment on the insurance policy, he filed a claim to collect the insurance payment. The claim said they were destroyed by fire!

The insurance company resisted, of course, but it ended up going to trial anyway. The company held this was a frivolous lawsuit and should be dismissed. The claimant held that the insurance policy did not distinguish between large fires and many small fires, and should be paid.

The judge, after deliberation, acknowledged the frivolousness of the lawsuit, but since the policy did not make the required distinction, he had to rule for the claimant. The insurance company paid the lawyer the sum of $24,000 for the cigars.

The next day, the insurance filed a suit against the lawyer, charging him with 24 counts of arson, as well as fraud. The trial went back to the same judge, in fact, who ruled in the insurance company’s favor, mainly on the strength of the defendant’s own testimony from the previous trial. He was fined (I think) $50,000 plus two years in jail.

This story brings to mind a line from an old George C. Scott movie, The Flim-Flam Man: “You can’t cheat an honest man.”