Item 3. Legal Proceedings
Item 3. LEGAL PROCEEDINGS
In the first quarter of 2024, a jury trial was held in the “trade secret lawsuit”. The trade secret lawsuit was filed in 2018 by Citizens, CICA Life Ltd. (Bermuda) and CICA Life Insurance Company of America (collectively, the “Citizens Companies,” “we,” "us" or "our") against certain former employees and independent consultants who we alleged unlawfully took Citizens’ confidential information in order to unfairly compete with us. Our claims against these parties included various unfair competition, tortious interference, breach of contract and other related claims.
As previously disclosed, the jury found that Citizens should pay Alexis Delgado and Carlos Nalsen Landa, former independent consultants, approximately $1.3 million for “money had and received”, an equitable theory that claimed that the Citizens Companies would be unjustly enriched if they didn’t pay past and future commissions to Delgado and Landa. Additionally, the trial court awarded defendants Michael P. Buchweitz and Randall Riley approximately $3.5 million of their legal fees incurred during the trade secret lawsuit. On August 16, 2024, the judge signed a Final Judgment reflecting the jury decision and the court award of the legal fees. We do not believe the jury properly found that Delgado or Landa were entitled to any prior or future commissions as there was no evidence that we actually held any amount of commissions that they claim they should have received. We also do not believe that Riley or Buchweitz are entitled to legal fees because they were found to have breached the contracts whose fee shifting provisions they sought to invoke.
On September 17, 2024, we filed an appeal bond with the trial court in order to stay any execution of the judgment against us.
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CITIZENS, INC.
We have appealed the judgment against us and the appeal is currently pending in the Court of Appeals, Third District of Texas, case number 03-24-00745-CV.
Item 4. MINE SAFETY DISCLOSURES
Not applicable.
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CITIZENS, INC.
PART II
Text extracted from the filing as submitted to EDGAR. Formatting, tables and exhibits are simplified for reading; the original document is authoritative for anything you rely on.