Insurance company sues over legal bills
Posted on Wednesday, February 15, 2006
FAYETTEVILLE — A Tennessee insurance company filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday against a Harrison doctor, claiming it should not be responsible for paying his legal fees in two lawsuits by former patients who said they were touched inappropriately.
In the lawsuit filed in U. S. District Court in Fayetteville, attorneys for State Volunteer Mutual Insurance Company said the company currently is paying internist Stephen R. Maes’ legal bills in two suits filed in Boone County Circuit Court.
A phone call to Maes’ Harrison office was not returned Tuesday. According to the Arkansas State Medical Board’s Web site, Maes has an active medical license.
The two lawsuits, filed by women who were patients in 2002, claim 47-year-old Maes inappropriately touched the women, kept nurses out of the room during doctor’s visits and made suggestive comments to them when they went in for their doctor’s visits in 2002.
Officials at the Boone County Circuit Court clerk’s office said both cases are pending.
Court records show the insurance company provided medical insurance to Maes from February 2004 to February 2005 — when the first of the lawsuits was filed.
“The policy issued by SVMIC to Dr. Maes does not provide coverage for the claims made against Dr. Maes and his professional association in the [complaints ],” attorney Overton Anderson wrote in his complaint.
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