In 2012, a drought occurred in many parts of the country resulting in losses suffered by many farms.
According to experts’ estimates, the drought losses constituted 2 045 mln rubles in Altai Krai only.
Regrettably, even though some farmers had their crops insured, no real compensation has been received from insurance companies. Moreover, many farmers have not yet tried to protect their interests in courts.
The only exception was a farm in Rodino Rayon that has decided to challenge the refusal of the insurance company in court.
Having tried to resolve the dispute by himself, the farmer lost the case before the first instance court in a trial in Omsk Oblast.
Importantly, the national insurance company was represented by Moscow lawyers who were present at each hearing in person.
Having lost, the farmer turned to professional lawyers. He was represented by Andrey Bezrukov (AB) and Sergey Sandakovsky (Yurisdelo).
The challenge lied in the fact that evidence could not be generally brought to the court of appeal, and the lawyers had their hands tied. Thus, the appeal in this court was unsuccessful. The probability of annulment of judicial acts in a cassation court is about 1 %. The decision was made, however, to go all the way on.
Andrey Bezrukov says,
“The case was tough. Most challenging was that we could not update the evidentiary basis in a higher court. To do so, we needed a good reason.
Also, the literal interpretation of the insurance rules signed by our client was against him.
After the case was lost in the appeal court, we decided to take a risk and substantiate our claim using a subtle matter to draw the interest of the higher court.
We studied a large amount of information and found some fundamental errors in the case. Another thing was challenging, too – this issue had little or no legal regulation in Russia.
With reference to the German law and the opinion of one of the judges of the Supreme Arbitration Court of the Russian Federation, we prepared small posters with tables for the hearing that demonstrated the errors in previous judicial acts.
And the court heard us.
We have established a fascinating precedent exploring a vital issue of procedure law. And we showed the farmers they should not be discouraged”.
It should be noted that if the farmer failed to win the case, he would find himself on the brink of bankruptcy and could have shut down the farm, which would do no good the whole region.
· Resolution of the Federal Arbitration Court of West Siberian District dd. 08/01/2014 on case No. 46-14536/2013.