As anxious policyholders await a pivotal Oklahoma Supreme Court decision in a bad-faith case involving the now-infamous State Farm documents, additional revealing documents, compiled decades ago by a State Farm whistleblower with Oklahoma roots, have surfaced at the Oklahoma City office of attorney Charles Weddle.
Weddle, of White & Weddle, first heard of State Farm whistleblower Ina DeLong after she was featured on a 1993 segment of “60 Minutes.” A decade later, Weddle employed DeLong as an expert witness, and a couple years after that, on the occasion of a visit to her sister in Yukon, DeLong showed up at Weddle’s office with a sheaf of documents that Weddle placed into a binder boldly labeled “State Farm.”
Weddle knew that after working for State Farm as a claims adjuster for 22 years, DeLong had flipped to become a fervent defender of insureds and had helped to found an influential, California-based consumer advocacy firm, United Policyholders.
Weddle recalled that DeLong was convinced that State Farm was never going to stop cheating their insureds.
“It just so happened that she handed me those documents,” Weddle said. “She said, ‘Charles, look, I acquired these documents, and someone like you might find them useful someday.’”
After she became renowned as a whistleblower, DeLong told Weddle, she would find State Farm documents left for her in paper bags and envelopes, their contents presumably judged damning by those who took pains to hide their origin.
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