Nationwide challenges $2.3 million court award to former Boardman insurance agent
An insurance company is continuing a legal battle against one of its former agents from Boardman who at one time won a $42 million dollar judgment against the company.

COLUMBUS, Ohio - An insurance company is continuing a legal battle against one of its former agents from Boardman who at one time won a $42 million dollar judgment against the company.
Nationwide Mutual Insurance is asking the Ohio Supreme Court to hear its appeal of a lower court decision that was handed up in favor of Christine Lucarell.
In 2012, a jury awarded Lucarell $42 million for her claim that she took part in Nationwide's Executive Agent program, but says she lost everything when the company changed the rules and took her clients.
The trial judge reduced the award to $14 million. In December the Seventh District Court of Appeals cut the award further to $2.3 million.
Now Nationwide wants the Ohio Supreme Court to hear the case, saying that the decision fundamentally alters the law of contracts, fraud, and punitive damages in Ohio.
The insurance company says the lower court ruling affects nearly every business transaction in the state, creating uncertainty in nearly every aspect of consumer and commercial deal.
Nationwide's filling was accompanied by briefs of support filed by the Ohio Insurance Institute, the National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies, the Association of Ohio Life Insurance Companies, the Ohio Alliance for Civil Justice, the Ohio Chamber of Commerce, and the Ohio Manufacturers' Association.