REAL SCOOP: Manj family suing over insurance policy
Credit to Author: Kim Bolan| Date: Wed, 12 Feb 2020 07:39:21 +0000
The family of a Vancouver gangster murdered in Mexico 14 months ago is suing RBC for refusing to pay out a half-million dollar life insurance policy.
Jodh Manj, 31, was gunned down in the parking lot of a commercial complex in the Mexico City neighbourhood of Santa Fe on Dec. 6, 2018. No one has been charged.
Manj, who grew up on Vancouver’s south slope, was associated with the United Nations gang and had been spending long periods of time in Mexico for years.
He bought the RBC life insurance policy in February 2009, according to court documents filed last week in B.C. Supreme Court by his relatives Kirpal, Aman and Yasbir Manj.
The three said in their suit that RBC Insurance sent out a series of letters on July 9, 2019 refusing to pay out the $500,000 death benefit.
The Manj relatives claim the insurance company is in breach of contract and “was obligated to pay to the plaintiffs $500,000 upon the death of the life insured.”
But in court documents, the RBC says the policy is void because Jodh Manj falsely claimed not to have any criminal convictions when he applied for the insurance policy 11 years ago.
“The defendant says that contrary to Manj’s representations, Manj had been convicted under the Youth Criminal Justice Act offences prior to February 2007 and that he had been convicted of breaching the terms of his sentence for these convictions,” RBC said in its response to the suit, adding that “Manj made these representations knowingly, without belief in truth, or recklessly, careless whether they were true or false.”
RBC Insurance “relied upon these misrepresentations in agreeing to issue the policy,” the court document said.
“The defendant says that the policy is void as a result of Manj’s fraudulent misrepresentations.”
The Manj relatives said there is insufficient evidence that Jodh Manj defrauded anyone.
“The defendant breached its duty of good faith and fair dealing by denying the plaintiffs’ claim when it knew, or ought to have known, that it did not have sufficient evidence to prove that Jodh S. Manj fraudulently made a material misrepresentation in his application for life insurance,” their claim said.
They said that after they applied to be paid out, RBC initially made no determination about cancelling the policy despite a file review by a case manager.
Only after an underwriter spoke to an RBC insurance investigator in an “undocumented call” on June 5, 2009 was a decision made to rescind the policy, the Manj suit said, adding that no notes were kept of the phone conversation.
On June 6, 2009, the underwriter “prepared a single page memorandum in which she stated that the policy could be rescinded for a material misrepresentation in the application.”
The Manjs are seeking damages and court costs, on top of the insurance money, which was supposed to have been split three ways.
Until 2017, Jodh Manj was facing charges of conspiracy to import and distribute methamphetamine, ecstasy and pseudoephedrine in Oregon, California, Washington and Canada.
The U.S. attorney in Portland alleged Manj had conspired with several others to smuggle ecstasy and pseudoephedrine from Canada into the U.S., then transport methamphetamine north to the Pacific Northwest and into B.C. from 2008 to 2010.
In 2009, Manj was intercepted by U.S. agents talking on the phone to the head of a drug trafficking organization about selling him 15,000 ecstasy pills.
The charges against Manj were dismissed in February 2017 because the “defendant has not been apprehended, his whereabouts are unknown, and it would be difficult to locate the witnesses and exhibits necessary for successful prosecution of this case,” U.S. court document state.