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Home Root DavisKaiser
MARY LOU RIPPSTINE DAVIS,
Appellant,
KAISER FOUNDATION HEALTH PLAN OF GEORGIA, INC.,
Appellee.
S99C0306
Billy Ned Jones
President, Georgia Trial Lawyers AssociationThis Brief Prepared By:Charles M. Cork, III
Ga. Bar No. 187915
Chair, Amicus Curiae Committee
Disclosure of Amicus Interest. The Georgia Trial Lawyers Association is an association comprising members of the State Bar of Georgia and it is committed to the preservation of the jury system and the notion of full compensation for those injured by the wrongdoing of others. Because of the enormous number of cases still pending to which the decision below could apply, GTLA submits the following brief in support of the petitioner's contention that she should be fully compensated before the insurer is reimbursed for its payments.
This brief will re-state arguments that GTLA made in its brief in support of the petition for certiorari, and in addition, this brief will show that other states have adopted the complete compensation principle by judicial decision even where a contract provision conflicts with that rule. See pp. 17-23.
The Effect of the Policy Provisions, if Valid
The decision of the Court of Appeals upholding the medical payments insurer's (MPI) policy provisions conflicts with numerous provisions and policies of Georgia law.
* The ruling below ignores the "Georgia public policy [that] strongly supports the rule that an insurer may not obtain reimbursement unless and until its insured has been completely compensated for his losses." Duncan v. Integon Gen. Ins. Corp., 267 Ga. 646, 647 (1997) (emphasis added). That this policy applies in all fields of Georgia law where the issue has arisen is shown below at pp. 5-11. That it is a part of the very fabric of Georgia law, and is part of the very definition of "insurance," is shown below at pp. 11-15.
* The Court of Appeals' ruling is contrary to the principle which prohibits subrogation or assignment of personal injury claims by upholding for the first time a loan receipt arrangement for personal injury claims and by imposing obligations on the plaintiff that are even more onerous than if the insurer had merely subrogated to the plaintiff's position. This is shown below at pp. 23-25.
* The ruling below authorizes policy provisions that are barratrous, in violation of OCGA § 16-10-95(a)(3), in that the provisions require an injured victim to file a suit even against her wishes and own best interests. See below at pp. 25-26.
* The ruling below conflicts with rulings from this court that the plaintiff in a tort claim should never be compelled to surrender a cause of action unless he has done so intentionally or received full compensation. See below at pp. 26-27.
The ruling below also has enormous practical consequences for a person who has been severely injured by the tortious conduct of another. For instance, suppose that an insured/victim received $50,000 in "benefits" from the MPI but the tortfeasor had only $15,000 in insurance coverage and assets. If this provision were valid, the insured/victim would have no right to recover a penny from the tortfeasor, but she would be forced to file a suit anyway under this policy, and to incur the expenses of litigation, in order to avoid being sued under this policy by her own insurer for reimbursement, that is, in order to avoid being victimized again. Since she would not recover from the tortfeasor, there would be no fund for the payment of contingent attorney's fees. Thus, she would either have to pay for an attorney out of her own pocket, or she would have to learn how to practice law on the fly for the benefit of the MPI. Whether she made a "reasonable effort" to prosecute her claim would be a jury question in a suit by the MPI against her. It would be difficult for her to compromise her claim, since a compromise could be evidence that she failed to make a "reasonable effort" to collect the debt due. Likewise, failure to seek the personal assets of an underinsured tortfeasor or to garnish wages could be deemed a failure to make a reasonable effort to collect.
CITATION OF AUTHORITY
THE REIMBURSEMENT PROVISIONS IN ISSUE VIOLATE GEORGIA'S PUBLIC POLICIES AND CANNOT BE ENFORCED.
There is no statute or common law principle that could justify the reimbursement provision here except freedom of contract. Freedom of contract is concededly an important and valuable right for all of the reasons cited by the courts in numerous decisions. "The main purpose of contract law is the realization of reasonable expectations induced by promises." Pepsi Cola Bottling Co. v. First National Bank, 248 Ga. 114, 116 (1981) (emphasis added). However, freedom of contract is not absolute, and it must yield when the contractual terms violate the policy of Georgia.
OCGA § 13-8-2(a) provides that "A contract which is against the policy of the law cannot be enforced." The statute then lists five types of contracts that are deemed to be against public policy, but states that this list does not exhaust the types of contracts that are against public policy. The statute makes the question of enforceability depend on determining whether the contract is against "the policy of the law." The reimbursement provisions here violate several "policies of the law."
THE REIMBURSEMENT PROVISIONS VIOLATE GEORGIA'S FUNDAMENTAL POLICY REQUIRING COMPLETE COMPENSATION OF AN INSURED FOR PERSONAL INJURIES BEFORE REIMBURSEMENT OF AN INSURER.
THE COMPLETE COMPENSATION RULE IS THE POLICY OF GEORGIA, AS MANIFEST IN EVERY FIELD OF LAW IN WHICH THE LEGISLATURE AND COURTS HAVE ADDRESSED THE QUESTION.
On every occasion in which the legislature and courts have addressed the question of complete compensation, the legislature and courts have upheld the priority of an insured/victim's right to collect complete compensation over the rights, whether statutory or contractual, of first-party medical pay insurers to be reimbursed from third-party liability insurers. This is a general policy of the law of Georgia, both statutory and common law; it is not limited to isolated fields of law.
* Most obviously, the General Assembly enacted OCGA § 33-24-56.1 which, if retroactively applied, would control the outcome of this case in favor of the insured/victim. Whether or not the law should be applied retroactively, it is the most powerful evidence that the policy of this state mandates that insured/victims obtain complete compensation for all economic and non-economic losses before reimbursement is permissible. It certainly confirms this court's earlier finding of a "public policy [that] strongly supports" the complete compensation rule. Duncan v. Integon Gen. Ins. Corp., 267 Ga. 646, 647 (1997) (emphasis added).
* In the field of Workers' Compensation, the General Assembly also has provided for the complete compensation rule. OCGA § 34-9-11.1(b) allows employer/insurers to subrogate to the employee's claims against third parties starting in 1992, but it provides that the employee must first be "fully and completely compensated ... for all economic and noneconomic losses incurred as a result of the injury."
OCGA § 34-9-11.1(b) expresses a clear legislative policy that the victim be completely compensated before the right of subrogation and reimbursement obtains. Indeed, it followed a twenty-year period during which a prior right of subrogation (Ga. Code Ann. §114-403) had been repealed. 1972 Ga. Laws 3, 4. Contemporary cases show that the right of subrogation was inhibiting settlements (since a 1963 amendment) and producing collateral litigation. Feild & Wisenbaker, Workmen's Compensation, 23 Mercer L. Rev. 321, 333-36 (1972). Furthermore, the workers compensation providers were getting a free ride on attorney's fees that the employee incurred in recovering from the tortfeasor. Commercial Union Ins. Co. v. Scott, 116 Ga. App. 633 (1967). Repeal was sought, and apparently obtained, because it was incongruous for an insurer to make himself whole by obtaining a return of compensation, and that any notion that such restitution is equitable overlooks not only the "paid-for" role of the insurer but the fact that both damages and compensation may be inadequate, and finally, the failure to use funds obtained by subrogation as a factor in rate-making makes any monies received by subrogation a windfall. If, as between insurer and employee, equitable principles support a windfall, the insurer is not the person to receive it. Feild & Wisenbaker, supra, 23 Mercer L. Rev. at 324. This analysis is similar to the Court's rationale in Duncan v. Integon Gen. Ins. Corp., 267 Ga. 646, 647 (1997) (citing Shelter Ins. Cos. v. Frohlich, 498 N.W.2d 74 (Neb. 1993)). The restoration in 1992 of subrogation and reimbursement rights only after the employee/ victim has been fully compensated is fully consistent with this notion, as presaged by the same critics in the year following the 1972 repeal. Feild, Workmen's Compensation, 24 Mercer L. Rev. 425, 426 (1973). Thus, again, the policy of the legislature is to require that the victim be fully compensated before the insurer is reimbursed.
* In the field of No-Fault (PIP) insurance before its repeal, the statute provided rights of subrogation to the no-fault insurer under certain circumstances. The question arose as to whether the insurer or the insured had priority. In 1976, the General Assembly resolved the question by amending the statute to add, in two places, that the right of subrogation would apply "only in the event that the [insured] has been completely compensated for all economic and noneconomic losses." 1976 Ga. Laws, 1078-79. That left unresolved the meaning of the statute before 1976, and in Blaylock v. Georgia Mut. Ins. Co., 239 Ga. 462, 465 (1977), this court observed that having a right of subrogation "does not necessarily establish priorities where the assets of the tortfeasor are inadequate to pay his liabilities." It resolved the priority question by observing that a no-fault provider is not authorized to stop paying benefits simply because other coverages are available (as is true of the insurance policy that is the subject of this case), though it would be entitled to do so if it had priority over the insured, from which this court concluded that the insured's claims have priority over the insurer's. Smith v. Employers' Fire Ins. Co., 255 Ga. 596 (1986), reaffirmed this construction, noted that the General Assembly amended the act in 1978 to language similar to its pre-1976 status, and found that because the General Assembly is charged with knowledge of the Supreme Court's decisions, the General Assembly adopted this court's construction that requires complete compensation before subrogation. Thus, the General Assembly and this court both found a policy to require complete compensation before reimbursement.
This amicus acknowledges that a 1984 amendment of this section led to a contrary construction in a dictum in Southern Gen. Ins. Co. v. Cotton States Mut. Ins. Co., 193 Ga. App. 240 (1989), as noted in Justice Sears's dissenting opinion in Duncan v. Integon Gen. Ins. Corp., 267 Ga. 646, 652 n. 13 (1997). See also Southern Guar. Ins. Co. of Georgia v. Georgia Farm Bur. Mut. Ins. Co., 195 Ga. App. 784 (1990). The General Assembly did not endorse this construction because it repealed the no-fault act effective in 1991. The undersigned believes that this construction is erroneous; that instead, the General Assembly simply provided for subrogation against uninsured tortfeasors under conditions of complete compensation, leaving intact the preexisting normal subrogation rights against insured tortfeasors' insurers, including the judicially interpreted provision for complete compensation. See F. Jenkins & W. Miller, Georgia Automobile Insurance Law (1995 ed.), §34-4, which accords with this amicus's view. In any event, the insured received complete compensation in both pre-repeal cases under the 1984 amendment, and the no-fault provider was not reimbursed at all.
* In the uninsured motorist context, an uninsured motorist carrier is subrogated to the rights of the insured/victim against the tortfeasor. OCGA § 33-7-11(f). While the statute provides only for an offset for the UMC's proportional share of attorney's fees and expenses of litigation, case law has interpreted the statute to impose a complete compensation limit on the right of subrogation, and the General Assembly has often revisited the statute without changing this judicial construction, thereby adopting the judicial construction. Johnson v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 216 Ga. App. 541, 544 (1995); Mullenberg v. K. J. Saxon Constr. Co., 192 Ga. App. 281, 282 (1989); Cherokee Ins. Co. v. Lewis, 187 Ga. App. 628 (1988), rev'd on other grounds, 258 Ga. 839 (1989).
* Even in the absence of statutes, the courts have invalidated provisions of insurance policies that would have the effect of denying complete compensation to insureds. The problem has arisen when a plaintiff is insured under two policies covering the same loss, and both policies contain clauses stating that they are excess over other insurance, which is equivalent to requiring a reimbursement of payments up to the limits of other insurance. In Southern Home Ins. v. Willoughby, 124 Ga. App. 162 (1971), the Court of Appeals addressed the question, reviewed divergent results from other jurisdictions, and held that the clauses cancel each other out. The court recognized that this approach violated both insurers' freedom to contract because "the intent of each insurer as to how the loss should be distributed is disregarded by this solution," id. at 166, but noted that the general intent of the policies was to indemnify the insured for the loss, while not being liable for the entire loss when there is double coverage. Id. By this means, the insured would receive complete compensation, but not a double recovery, even though the approach, strictly speaking, would violate the insurer's freedom of a contract. See also State Farm Fire & Cas. Co. v. Holton, 131 Ga. App. 247, 248 (1974), and Georgia Farm Bureau Mut. Ins. Co. v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 173 Ga. App. 844, 845-846 (1985), which follow the same rationale.
Such cases are very important for the resolution of this case. The insurers in those cases argued, as does the insurer in this one, that their freedom of a contract should be paramount, even if the insured received no money. The court agreed that the freedom to contract was important, but held that concern subordinate to the need to provide insurance under the terms of the contract, and it worked out a fair way that compensated the plaintiff as the first principle.
In view of all of the foregoing, this court correctly held in Duncan v. Integon Gen. Ins. Corp., 267 Ga. 646 (1997), that the complete compensation rule is "the public policy of Georgia," id., 646, and that Georgia public policy strongly supports the rule that an insurer may not obtain reimbursement unless and until its insured has been completely compensated for his losses. Indeed, Georgia public policy encourages insurance coverage which assures no less than full compensation to the insured, while at the same time preventing the insured from recovering more than is necessary to make him whole. [Cit.]
267 Ga. at 647. The Court did not purport to announce a new principle; it simply found that this policy already existed.
THE COMPLETE COMPENSATION RULE IS PART OF THE FABRIC OF GEORGIA LAW AS A FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLE OF GEORGIA JURISPRUDENCE.
The policy favoring complete compensation in the cases noted above was not simply a collection of isolated rulings and statutes; it existed throughout Georgia jurisprudence, a part of the warp and woof of Georgia law. This conclusion is evident because the courts have decided the above questions in one field of law in reliance upon decisions from other fields or on decisions from other states. Duncan v. Integon Gen. Ins. Corp., 267 Ga. 646 (1997) (relying on common law decisions from other jurisdictions and Georgia uninsured motorist cases in a medical payment's reimbursement setting); Bartow County Bd. of Educ. v. Ray, 229 Ga. App. 333 (1997) (referencing Duncan in a workers' compensation setting); Cherokee Ins. Co. v. Lewis, 187 Ga. App. 628 (1988), rev'd on other grounds, 258 Ga. 839 (1989) (relying on law from other jurisdictions and a Georgia no-fault case in an uninsured motorist setting). If the policy of complete compensation did not exist across the board, those citations of authority would have been irrelevant.
Therefore, the court should conclude that the general policy of the law in Georgia requires complete compensation of the insured before reimbursement of the insurer, and that this was the status of the law before Duncan (as Dunc
an recognized it) and before OCGA § 33-24-56.1 (as the General Assembly refused to differ from Duncan).
Because complete compensation was a general policy of the law, it informs the meanings of statutes, such as the very definition of insurance in OCGA § 33-1-2(2). "It is a familiar rule of construction, where a statute is susceptible of two interpretations, that it should be construed in harmony with the general policy of the law, rather than against it." Singleton v. Close, 130 Ga. 716, 720 (1908) (statute construed in terms of policy of free alienability of property, which policy is "woven in the warp and woof of all of our laws" so that exceptions to the policy must be stated in clear and unmistakable words); Knight v. Georgia Farm Bur. Mut. Ins. Co., 184 Ga. App. 312, 314 (1987) (same rule applied to an uninsured motorist statute); Collins v. C. W. Matthews Contracting Co., Inc., 213 Ga. App. 109, 110 (1994).
All statutes are presumed to be enacted by the General Assembly with full knowledge of the existing condition of the law and with reference to it, and are therefore to be construed in connection and in harmony with the existing law, and as a part of a general and uniform system of jurisprudence, and their meaning and effect is to be determined in connection, not only with the common law and the Constitution, but also with reference to other statutes and decisions of the courts. Gulf Life Ins. Co. v. Folsom, 256 Ga. 400, 403 (1986) (emphasis added). The definition of insurance should be considered in connection with the general policy of Georgia law favoring complete compensation.
As defined, "insurance" is a "contract which is an integral part of a plan for distributing individual losses whereby one undertakes to indemnify another or to pay a specified amount or benefits upon determinable contingencies." OCGA § 33-1-2(2); Ponder v. Fulton-DeKalb Hosp. Auth., 256 Ga. 833, 835 (1987). Therefore, such a policy must either "indemnify" the insured or "pay" specified "benefits," as these terms are construed in accordance with the general policy of complete compensation.
This policy did not pay a benefit except to the extent that loan companies "pay benefits"; like a loan receipt it merely advanced a sum and required that the insured "must reimburse us for services or benefits you receive" under the first sentence of the provisions in issue (subject to a later determination that the insured tried in good faith but failed to obtain payment for her insurer from the tortfeasor). Implicit in the concept of payment of a benefit is that the payment is unconditional (OCGA § 13-4-24) and that the benefit serves to make the insured whole, for otherwise it is not a benefit. Payments under the subject provisions are conditional; they must be reimbursed "if your injury or illness is caused or alleged to be caused by a third party or in a motor vehicle accident." In such circumstances the payments are repayable loans or advances, not benefits.
Therefore, the policy can only constitute "insurance" to the extent it indemnifies the insured. Unless it makes the insured whole, the policy cannot be said to indemnify the insured. A contract to indemnify has been defined as:
A collateral contract or assurance, by which one person engages to secure another against an anticipated loss or to prevent him from being damnified by the legal consequences of an act or forbearance on the part of one of the parties or of some third person. [Cit.] The term is also used to denote a compensation given to make the person whole from a loss already sustained.
Gamble v. Reeves Transp. Co., 126 Ga. 161, 163 (1972) (emphasis added). In order to indemnify, the policy must "make the person whole." The provisions in issue here do not make the insured whole since the insured is called upon to sacrifice some part of her compensation for other injuries to reimburse the MPI.
In short, without application of the complete compensation rule, the policy here is not insurance. Without that rule, it violates the public policy of our state regulating insurance contracts.
THE COURT OF APPEALS MISAPPLIED RULES OF STATUTORY CONSTRUCTION IN CONCLUDING THAT OCGA § 33-24-56.1 WAS A LEGISLATIVE EFFORT TO CHANGE A PRIOR RULE CONTRARY TO THE COMPLETE COMPENSATION RULE.
The Court of Appeals stated that the law before OCGA § 33-24-56.1 must have allowed reimbursement provisions such as the current one because the General Assembly was aware of existing law, including Duncan v. Integon, and that the General Assembly must be presumed to have changed the existing law, citing cases that address the meaning of language added to an existing text. Davis v. Kaiser Foundation Health Plan of Georgia, Inc., 235 Ga. App. 13, 15 (1998). On the contrary, it is because the General Assembly was aware of Duncan that the presumption of changing the law is misplaced. If the General Assembly had changed the law of Duncan, it would have rejected the holding there. Instead, the General Assembly confirmed the holding and simply provided a methodology for enforcing each party's rights.
It is apparent from the text of OCGA § 33-24-56.1 that the General Assembly intended merely to make explicit and confirm the existing law, especially since Duncan v. Integon Gen. Ins. Corp., 267 Ga. 647 (1997), was decided during the legislative session and was well known to the legislators. "The acts of the legislature will be construed as intending to state the preexisting law, and not to change it, unless the contrary plainly appears." Johnson v. Eidson, 235 Ga. 820, 824 (1976). The preamble states that the act "provides for reimbursement," thus allowing reimbursement, where "an injured insured person has been fully compensated," and the rest of the act simply supplies procedures for resolving questions of the extent of reimbursement. OCGA § 33-24-56.1 would look very different if the General Assembly had differed from this court's understanding of the policy of Georgia or if it had wanted to allow insurers the opportunity to avoid the effect of the complete compensation rule by contract.
According to the MPI (p. 20, n. 4), the rule that construes statutes as stating pre-existing law applies only where the statute has "an obvious predecessor," citing TEC America, Inc. v. DeKalb County Bd. of Tax Assessors, 170 Ga. App. 533, 537 (1984). Unfortunately for this argument, TEC America specifically states that the rule is also applicable "when construing the original codification of a previously existing rule of law which was not statutory in origin." Therefore, the rule of construction applies to the codification of the non-statutory rule in Duncan v. Integon.
Contrary to the Court of Appeals, a legislative enactment that clarifies the policy of the law to require complete compensation of the insured before reimbursement of the insurer does not require a finding that the law before the enactment was different. See insurance cases such as Knight v. Georgia Farm Bur. Mut. Ins. Co., 184 Ga. App. 312, 314 (1987) (addition of clarifying language in statute covering a situation does not mean that statute did not already implicitly cover the subject); Colwell v. Voyager Cas. Ins. Co., 184 Ga. App. 842, 843-44 (1987) (statutory amendment merely changed the clarity of the prior law); Leader Nat. Ins. Co. v. Gaydon, 185 Ga. App. 322, 326-7 (1987) (current statute's explicit negation of duty to give duplicate notice of insurance cancellation does not mean that it was required before statutory change). The Court of Appeals erred in reasoning to a contrary conclusion.
THE COMPLETE COMPENSATION RULE HAS BEEN ADOPTED BY COURTS OF OTHER STATES, NOTWITHSTANDING CONTRARY INSURANCE PROVISIONS.
Kaiser's brief (pp. 7-14) gives the erroneous impression that all courts authorize insurers(1) to modify the complete compensation rule at will. On the contrary, the courts are divided on this issue. This section addresses cases that prohibit contractual modification of the complete compensation rule and responds to some cases cited by Kaiser.
Several courts have ignored insurance policy provisions by subordinating conventional (contractual) subrogation under equitable subrogation, so that the equitable principles mandating complete compensation prevail over contract provisions. See e.g.,
* Wimberly v. American Cas. Co., 584 S.W.2d 200 (Tenn. 1979) ("The doctrine of subrogation in insurance does not arise from, nor is it dependent upon, statute or custom or any of the terms of the contract; it has its origin in general principles of equity and in the nature of the insurance contract as one of indemnity. The right of subrogation rests not upon a contract, but upon the principles of natural justice." Thus the distinction between legal and conventional subrogation is "only dispositive of 'whether there is a right of subrogation in the first instance, rather than in the enforcement of such right.'");
* Rimes v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 106 Wis. 2d 263, 316 N.W.2d 348 (1982) ("Whether an insurer is claiming rights under the insurance contract, or under rules of equity, the entire law of subrogation is based upon equitable principles.");
* Allstate Ins. Co. v. Clarke, 527 A.2d 1021 (Pa. Super. 1987) ("The right of subrogation may be contractually declared or founded in equity, but even if contractually declared, it is to be regarded as based upon and governed by equitable principles.");
* Franklin v. Healthsource of Arkansas, 328 Ark. 163, 942 S.W.2d 837 (1997) ("The same facts give rise to both legal and conventional subrogation." A rule preferring conventional over legal subrogation "is arbitrary and inconsistent with theories of equity." Where the insured and insurer cannot both be made whole, "the equitable principles and objectives of subrogation are controlling."). This case overrules Higginbotham v. Arkansas Blue Cross & Blue Shield, 849 S.W.2d 464 (Ark. 1993), a case noted in the dissent in Duncan v. Integon.
In Thiringer v. American Motors Ins. Co., 91 Wash. 2d 215, 588 P.2d 191 (1978), the Supreme Court of Washington stated that the complete compensation rule "embodies a policy deemed socially desirable in this state, in that it fosters the adequate indemnification of innocent automobile accident victims." It held that a provision in the policy contrary to this rule "would be obviously unfair, since the insured pays a premium for the PIP coverage and has a right to expect that the payments promised under this coverage will be available to him if the amount he is able to recover from other sources, after diligent effort, is less than his general damages."
The Supreme Court of Rhode Island "has disallowed contractual limitations that curtail an insured's recovery in instances in which the insured has not recovered the amount of his or her actual loss." DiTata v. Aetna Cas. & Sur. Co., 542 A.2d 245 (R.I. 1988).
In Powell v. Blue Cross Blue Shield of Alabama, 581 So.2d 772 (1990), the Supreme Court of Alabama rejected a policy provision stating that the "right to reimbursement of the Administrator comes first even if a Member is not paid for all of his claim for damages against the other person ...." It joined the jurisdictions requiring complete compensation because that rule better reflects the underlying equitable principles that give rise to the remedy of subrogation itself, without which there would be no right of subrogation at all, and better reflects the purpose for which one purchases insurance. The very heart of the bargain when the insured purchases insurance is that if there is a loss he or she will be made whole. The cases that originally applied subrogation to insurance contracts did so on behalf of the insurer only after the insured had been fully compensated. These cases never envisioned the use of subrogation as a device to fully reimburse the insurer at the expense of leaving the insured less than fully compensated for his loss.
In Porter v. McPherson, 198 W. Va. 158, 163, 479 S.E.2d 668, 673 (1996), the Supreme Court of West Virginia observed that reimbursement rights in insurance policies (as opposed to hospital liens) were subject to the made whole rule. "The equitable principle underlying the made-whole rule in insurance subrogation cases is that the burden of loss should rest on the party paid to assume the risk (the insurer) and not on the party least able to shoulder the loss (the inadequately compensated insured)."
In Hare v. State of Mississippi, No. 97-CA-01443-SCT (Miss. decided March 18, 1999), the Supreme Court of Mississippi also refused to allow policy terms to defeat the complete compensation rule
because the intent of subrogation is to prevent a double recovery by the insured, especially here as expressly stated in the State Health Plan. Until the insured has been fully compensated, there cannot be a double recovery. Otherwise, to allow the literal language of an insurance contract to destroy an insured's equitable right to subrogationignores the fact that this type of contract is realistically a unilateral contract of insurance and overlooks the insured's total lack of bargaining power in negotiating the terms of these types of agreements.
From the foregoing discussion, the complete compensation rule is plainly a viable principle in American jurisprudence.
Wine v. Globe American Casualty Co., 917 S.W.2d 558 (Ky. 1996), cited by Kaiser (Kaiser's Br. at 7), does not support Kaiser's position. There, the Kentucky Supreme Court expressly declined to determine whether it would join the jurisdictions that do or do not allow contractual modification of the complete compensation rule (917 S.W.2d at 564). The language which Kaiser quotes appears not in the insurance policy, but in a release executed by the insured after actual negotiated, with both sides having counsel and equal bargaining position, where the insured's loss had been sustained and fully appreciated. 917 S.W.2d at 565. These considerations do not apply to Kaiser's contract of adhesion here. The Kentucky Supreme Court held that "subrogation rights may be modified by contract, provided violence is not done to established equitable principles" (id., emphasis added), and concluded that releases executed under these circumstances do not violate equitable principles such as complete compensation.
The defect in York v. Sevier County Ambulance Authority, 1998 WL 334433 (Tenn. App. 1998), discussed by Kaiser (Kaiser's Br. at 7-9), is that, while recognizing that "Tennessee's 'made whole' doctrine" (see Wimberly v. American Cas. Co., 584 S.W.2d 200 (Tenn. 1979), supra) prohibits an insurer from recovering in subrogation "unless the insured is made whole," the court found no public policy invalidating a reimbursement clause. The same public policy that prohibits subrogation unless the insured has been made whole prohibits reimbursement unless the insured has been made whole. Subrogation is nothing but a right of reimbursement coupled with a particular means of enforcement. Mahler v. Szucs, 135 Wash.2d 398, 957 P.2d 632 (1998).
Peterson v. Ohio Farmers Ins. Co., 191 N.E.2d 157 (Ohio 1963), and Culver v. INA, 599 A.2d 400 (N.J. 1989), cited by Kaiser (Kaiser's Br. at 10), dealt with property damage claims and a post-loss settlement that adjusted the rights of the parties and assigned the claim to the insurer. Post-loss settlements lack the elements of adhesion noted by various courts above. Property claims, likewise, do not control Georgia law, which treats property claims separately from personal injury claims in several respects. OCGA § 51-1-32 (personal injury and property damage claims are separate in motor vehicle wrecks, allowing the settlement of one and litigation of the other); OCGA § 44-12-24 (property damage claims may be assigned, personal injury claims may not).
THE REIMBURSEMENT PROVISIONS IN ISSUE VIOLATE GEORGIA'S POLICY AGAINST ASSIGNMENT OF PERSONAL INJURY CLAIMS.
Georgia prohibits the assignment of personal injury claims. OCGA § 44-12-24; Carter v. Banks, 254 Ga. 550, 552-3 (1985). Where the assignment of a personal injury claim to an insurer is prohibited, the insurer may not indirectly accomplish the same result by means of a loan receipt. National Surety Corp. v. McDonnell, 194 Ga. App. 597 (1) (1990) (loan receipt that would indirectly assign PIP claim to insurer in violation of statute "must be considered an absolute payment and not a loan"). Under the provision at issue here, if it were valid, medical payments amount to payments under a loan receipt: they are loans which the insured must repay from a recovery. But unlike mere loan receipts, where at least the insurer controls the litigation at its expense, the insured here must pursue the litigation at her expense.
The loan receipt is a valid method for handling the property damage claims out of which loan receipts historically arose, but in order to be valid, the case must "involve property damage as opposed to personal injury claims." American Chain & Cable Co., Inc. v. Brunson, 157 Ga. App. 833, 834 (1981) (loan receipt where one defendant paid the plaintiff, but retained a right to be repaid out of plaintiff's claim against a joint tortfeasor, was invalid as an indirect assignment of the personal injury claim and was thus an absolute payment). Both McDonnell and Brunson, supra, invalidate provisions of loan receipts requiring reimbursement from the proceeds of a personal injury claim based on Georgia's prohibition on assignment of personal injury claims. That prohibition applies equally to the reimbursement provisions in this case.
Furthermore, if the policy provisions in question were valid, the MPI would get a free ride. The MPI would be in a better position than if it had been allowed, contrary to the law of Georgia, to subrogate to the insured/victims's claims. If it were allowed to subrogate, it would have to incur the costs of litigation, including attorney's fees, as an offset against its recovery of reimbursement. If it were allowed to subrogate, it would incur the risks of all litigation, and particularly, it would incur the risk that the insured/victim may be found to be contributorily negligent in some degree that would offset its recovery. Finally, if it were allowed to subrogate, it would face the possibility that the tortfeasor would lack sufficient insurance or assets to pay for all valid claims, including those of the insured/victim and the MPI. Thus, if it were allowed to subrogate, the MPI's recovery would be diminished by normal expenses and devalued by normal risks. But if the provisions here were valid, it would incur no costs in proving that the third party is liable, it would incur no risk of a finding of comparative negligence, and its claims would stand before the insured/victim's claims to complete compensation. The insured/ victim incurs more risks in recovering the amount due than the insurer incurs, though the insured/victim pays the insurer a premium to take such risks.
The provision at issue here is an outrageous violation of the principle against assignment of personal injury claims.
.THE REIMBURSEMENT PROVISIONS IN ISSUE VIOLATE GEORGIA'S PROHIBITION ON BARRATRY
.Barratry is a crime. OCGA § 16-10-95(a)(3) declares a person guilty of barratry who "solicits or encourages the institution of a judicial ... proceeding ... before being consulted by a complainant in relation thereto." The subject reimbursement provision commands the insured to file an action seeking reimbursement on behalf of the MPI, on pain of reimbursing the MPI herself, even if she does not want to seek payment from a third party. It therefore violates the prohibition against barratry and is void against Georgia public policy. OCGA § 13-8-2(a).
If the policy provisions were valid, they would require the injured party to proceed to suit whether the injured party desires to do so or not. The policy provides that if the injury is "caused or alleged to be caused by a third party or in a motor vehicle accident," "you must make a reasonable effort to obtain payment," and "this means you must file and seriously pursue a claim ... for payment for medical services." Even though it would be pointless for the plaintiff, who receives nothing, the insurer commands her to sue. Even if she simply desires not to sue, the insurer commands her to sue. Even if it would cost her time and expense to sue, the insurer commands her to sue.
The subject policy provisions interfere with the injured party's personal decision to use the courts by commanding a suit. Therefore, they violate the Georgia policy against barratry.
THE REIMBURSEMENT PROVISIONS IN ISSUE VIOLATE GEORGIA'S POLICY THAT A PLAINTIFF SHOULD NOT BE COMPELLED TO SURRENDER A CAUSE OF ACTION IN ABSENCE OF COMPLETE COMPENSATION.
Within the system of tort law, Georgia recognizes the "principle that a plaintiff should never be compelled to surrender his cause of action against any wrongdoer unless he has intentionally done so, or unless he has received such full compensation that he is no longer entitled to maintain it." Williams v. Physicians & Surgeons Community Hospital, Inc., 249 Ga. 588, 589 (1982) (punctuation omitted, emphasis added); Oconee Regional Medical Center v. Haygood, 217 Ga. App. 600, 601 (1995); Johnson v. Ruppert, 177 Ga. App. 883, 884 (1986). In Williams, this court invalidated a release of subsequent tortfeasors after noting that "strict adherence to the terms of a preprinted release form is unfair to laymen who may be unknowledgeable or not represented by an attorney during negotiation and execution of the release." Id., 591. Hence the value of freedom of contract was trumped by the unfairness of provisions that defeated a personal injury claim without full compensation. The same can be said for the preprinted insurance policy in this case, except that the insured/victim here had even less control over its selection and terms than the settling plaintiff in Williams. Yet the provisions in issue would require the insured to surrender to her own insurer parts of her claim against the tortfeasor for other economic and noneconomic damages, namely, those parts that must be abandoned (e.g., lost wages, pain and suffering) in order to fully reimburse her insurer for its medical payments.(2) This is contrary to the tort law of Georgia.
For the foregoing reasons, the undersigned respectfully submits that the Court should construe the insurance policy provisions in question as subject to the policy of Georgia that requires complete compensation for all economic and noneconomic damages before the insurer is entitled to receive reimbursement.
CHARLES M. CORK, III
I certify that I have this day served a copy of the foregoing document, with any attachments, upon all counsel of record by mailing the same with sufficient postage in a properly addressed envelope, as follows:
Mr. Larry R. Wight
11205 Alpharetta Hwy., Suite C-3
Mr. Patrick J. Gibbs
Mr. Grant B. Smith
Mr. John D. Dixon
Dennis, Corry & Porter LLP
3300 One Atlanta Plaza
950 East Paces Ferry Road
Dated this April ____, 1999
.CHARLES M. CORK, III
1. In a telling phrase, Kaiser states the issue as whether to recognize "a party's right to modify the application of the complete compensation rule," as other states have done. Kaiser Br., 6. Plainly, Kaiser recognizes that the provision in question is Kaiser's unilateral effort to change the law.
2. Georgia law provides a mechanism for resolving this dispute: submission of special interrogatories to determine what part of an award is to be allocated to the reimbursable medical payment. Allstate Ins. Co. v. Austin, 120 Ga. App. 430 (2) (1969), cert. dismissed, 226 Ga. 93 (1970) (burden on insurer to show by evidence whether verdict compensated plaintiff for item covered by policy as opposed to other items of damage).


A close look at a BYU day reveals a campus that is both familiar and surprising.
Feeling for once like a true investigative journalist, I was on a self-guided campus tour, weaving through busy thoroughfares and poking my head into less-populated campus haunts. For our "24 Hours at BYU" photo shoot, I was hunting for photogenic evidence of the peculiar quirks, charm, and character that define BYU in the early 21st century.
Striding self-importantly about campus, walkie-talkie in hand, I radioed every promising photo-op I spied to the editors stationed at our command center in the Wilk, from which we were coordinating 30 photographers' efforts that day. Along with depleting our ranks of available photographers, my incessant pleas for someone to come shoot this or that instance of iconic serendipity had become a command-center joke.
Dance students (from left) Jerica Obert ('06), Shawna Haley Perez ('06), and Michelle H. Nielsen ('05) practice their drumming for a dance-accompaniment class. Photo by Annie Jones.
But I couldn't restrain myself. At every step I saw examples of classic BYU behavior: There were students strumming guitars, sending text messages, snoozing on almost every level surface, sizing up prospects, and, of course, studying. Workers were selling books, planting pansies, transforming devotional décor into basketball floor, and pouring concrete. And in classroom after classroom, lab after lab, and office after office, faculty and students were gathered in groups large and small, professing, debating, and applying disciplines that collectively cover everything in heaven above and on earth below.
All this was vintage BYU, and I wanted to make sure our cameras captured it for our campus portrait.
But then in the RB corridors my ears met the echo of beats far too rhythmic to be from basketballs, and I found something I hadn't expected at all. Students playing bongos in the RB? Who would have thought it? We had to get a photographer to shoot this.
Although our photographers captured ample imagery to confirm many of our preconceived notions of this peculiar place, bongo-like surprises seemed to lurk around every corner. There was the remote-controlled blimp soaring over the munching minions in the Wilkinson Center Terrace at lunchtime. There was the multitasking student who read from a text while riding with no hands on his bike across campus. There was the technology professor dressed as Aristotle to explain classical theories. There were two men cutting meat for campus orders in a remote campus basement.
Just when you think you've got these 600 acres called BYU figured out, you happen upon bongos or a blimp or an ancient Greek or a butcher, and you have to repaint your mental picture all over again. Though some aspects of BYU's culture and character seem fixed from generation to generation, our photo shoot revealed a BYU that is surprisingly surprising.
One discovery was just how busy this place is. By the day's end, we were convinced that even with our 30 photographers taking some 12,000 images—enough to induce trigger-finger tendonitis—we'd only scratched the surface of all that goes on here during an ordinary day. But even squeezing the best of our photos into 62 pages was a challenge. In the end we could use less than 2 percent. We also realized that some parts of the BYU experience don't translate well into photos, or words for that matter. Things like feeling the Spirit or falling in love are more readily impressed on hearts and minds than on paper.
What we ended up with were a couple hundred images pieced together into a sort of BYU mosaic. We couldn't show everything, but we hope the rough portrait reflects what we found—a BYU that is at once familiar and surprising—the home of the bell tower and the botany pond, of butchers and bongos.
EPILOGUE. There were no bongos in the RB. Further investigating the bongo incident, I called one of the RB drummers, Jerica Obert ('06) of Riverton, Utah, to account for her whereabouts and activities on the morning of Sept. 22, 2004. She flatly denied pounding on any bongos, despite apparent photographic evidence to the contrary.
Exposing my ignorance and seriously compromising my lead for this essay, she politely explained that those drums were in fact African djembe drums, not Cuban bongos.
So I've come full circle. There weren't bongos in the RB. Just when I thought I had this place figured out . . .


One of my favorite things to do when traveling is to walk around markets. One of the more interesting market neighborhoods in Singapore is Little India, which—despite having been organized and regularized for tourist purposes—remains a bit gritty and suitably colorful. With my free afternoon this Sunday I took a stroll along Serangoon Rd, from the Little India MRT stop to Syed Alwi Road, and off and on here and there to explore some sidestreets.
I did not expect the streets to be as crowded as they were. But it occurs to me now that Sunday afternoon is likely to be one of the busiest times in Singapore's Little India, as many non-resident workers from the subcontinent have the day off.
As I haven't been in Singapore for several years, it's been awhile since I've had proper South Indian food. I thus decided that I could afford two dinners this evening. The first came at one of the local outlets of Chennai's justifiably famous Murugan Idli Shop.
Then, about an hour later, at the original outlet of Komala Vilas.
If you've never had idli before, then it's hard to describe them. The closest thing in flavor and texture is injera, but they have nothing to do with one another except for they are squishy and a bit sour. Sambarvadai was new to me, but it's basically a lentil donut doused in sambar (which is basically this, pardon the name). Komala Vilas' dosa is right in their wheelhouse, and it immediately brought back memories, although it was about 1/3 of my way through the unidentified pulses and vegetable sides that I realized that two dinners would be too much.


In this exclusive interview, James Blake Wiener of Ancient History Encyclopedia (AHE) speaks to acclaimed travel writer, historian, and photographer Duncan J.D. Smith about the unusual perspectives he shares in his Only In Guides. Reveling in hidden gems, abandoned ruins, and little-known museums, Duncan J.D. Smith's travel guides of major European cities are filled with fun bits of history and archaeology.


Investigators are going proactive with new tools that troll the Dark Web for bad actors.
How do manufacturers hear that they have compromised product in the marketplace? Up to now, there have only been a few ways. A consumer might lodge a complaint. An anomaly in sales to a particular distributor might arouse suspicions. A customs agent might spot a suspect-looking shipment. Mostly it's pure chance.
The problem is these are all reactive. They're all responding to an ongoing scheme, one that is hurting the company in real time. The bad guys always seem to be several steps ahead.
But that's now changing. Professional investigators are learning to combine traditional detecting skills with sophisticated new technology to search for diverted and counterfeit product in less reactive, more proactive ways.
The COO of a major pharmaceutical company didn't really believe his OTC brand was being counterfeited, but he wanted to be sure—so he initiated an investigation. He knew that a cyber-investigative team had recently developed a new search tool to troll the Dark Web for evidence of illicit product, which he thought might prove him right. It proved him wrong.
The team identified, almost immediately, three black market websites advertising a product that looked just like his company's, but wasn't.
This could have been a case of diversion—of legitimate product being marketed through illegal channels. But more likely it was outright counterfeiting—false product sold under the guise of a well-known brand. At best the product would be a weakened or an ineffective version of the original. At worst it would be toxic or even life-threatening. The impact on the company—financial, legal, and reputational—was potentially dire.
But this was, strangely, good news. At least the company had found out about it. Now investigators could visit the illicit site. They could see how the product was being sold. They could buy the product to use as evidence. They could look to match the site to other links in an illegal supply chain. There was even a chance they could identify the suspects and, just maybe, shut them down.
The cyber-investigative team was onto something big. Using their tool, investigators no longer have to wait for evidence of counterfeiting or diversion. They can go out and find it. They can be proactive. The Dark Web—that vast illegal online marketplace—might be home to millions of shady operators, but now the good guys get a chance to identify, interact with, and buy from them, and ultimately disrupt their operations.
Counterfeiting operations are often large, well-bankrolled criminal organizations. They work globally, using financial clout and cutting-edge technology to build sophisticated factories, set up elaborate distribution networks, and circumvent the laws of each country they operate in—many of which have lax enforcement to begin with.
Diversion operations, by contrast, are not necessarily criminal, but they often turn out that way. They frequently involve wholesalers buying a branded product in overseas markets and selling it in the United States, so as to take advantage of lower prices in those markets. This is certainly in violation of company policies and, often enough, the law. But what's dangerous is that it blatantly disregards other significant differences in the product that vary from country to country. In a drug, this can mean different ingredients or dosages. In a diagnostic device, it can mean readings that are incorrect, and therefore useless. Ultimately, it erodes consumer trust for the brand in question.
Identifying diversion and counterfeiting operations is no easy task, which is why the cyber investigators' search tool is a possible game-changer. But it doesn't exist in a vacuum. Even when used effectively, other tools and procedures come into play.
Professional investigators can take information they acquire with the search tool and run with it. They can arrange evidentiary purchases. They can determine if the product is genuine or counterfeit. They can walk back the supply chain to find out who is distributing what and from where. They can track down the country and, hopefully, the factory of origin.
But these things are not possible without boots on the ground all over the world. Skilled researchers are needed to comb public records in multiple languages. Informants need to be cultivated, suspects identified, persons of interest interrogated. Undercover operations and covert surveillance are often required. Contacts in law enforcement—state, federal, and international—are absolutely essential.
Even when actual arrests are impossible, there are actions that can be taken. Corrupt wholesalers can be eliminated, civil seizures can break the supply chain, public health alerts can help straighten out reputational issues. There's a lot to be said for simply understanding what's going on.
Will any of this put an end to illegal diversion and counterfeiting? Certainly not. Still, anything that gives the bad guys pause, that keeps them from acting with impunity, that raises their stakes and their risk level, is certainly a step forward.
Most businesses have neither the resources nor the experience needed to do this. Only by engaging a professional investigation team will you get the specialized skills, global contacts, and advanced technology required to do it right.


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But enough with the setup already, let's get the show on the road! So sit back, relax, and enjoy today's Countdown superstar, D-Von Dudley!
"D-Von, get the tables!" That's the phrase that Bubba Ray Dudley has shouted at his brother for almost 10 years now. D-Von Dudley has been one half of one of the sport's most enduring tag teams ever, and it doesn't look like that's going to end anytime soon.
Back in the ECW days, D-Von started as the antagonist of the Dudley clan, pushing around his brother Bubba Ray until the two men formed a unit that would endure through the ages. Backed up by the power of Bubba, D-Von is the faster, more compact member of the team, capable of dishing out the punishment both on the mat and from the air.
With an unprecedented number of Tag Team Championship reigns to his credit, D-Von can claim to be one of the finest tag team specialists the game has ever known.


Do Good Partners Help You to Learn More? Hell Yeah!
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Does a REALLY Good "Landing" Page Design Really Matter? Hell Yeah!
Step 2: Send this to EVERYONE that you know in Pavement Management, Surveying, Data-Collection, applications all the way to HA5™ .
Use this new tool to facilitate the urgency in your LOCAL Agency.
We do not have to wait for the "stuffed shirts" to go away.
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MAKE your colleagues join the live Webinar on the 7th at 2PM, EST.
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Aravinda Sametha Veera Raghava is an Indian film directed by Trivikram Srinivas. Young Tiger N. T. R. stars in this movie. This is his 28th film. The movie is produced by Haarika & Hassine Creations banner. Pooja Hegde plays the lead lady role in this movie as Aravinda.
S. S. Thaman composes the musical score for Aravinda Sametha Veera Raghava. P. S. Vinod handles the cinematography.


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An Incredible Year for Instrumental Rocker AM Dandy
Alessandro "AM Dandy" Meynardi is an Italian guitarist and composer based in Boston (MA), USA. Born in Mondovì, a small village in North West Italy, AM Dandy has been playing guitar since he was nine years old. AM Dandy already has an impressive musical repertoire under his belt and is strongly influenced by iconic artists such as Steve Vai, Frank Zappa, Pat Metheny, Guthrie Govan, Santana, and many others. His diverse musical background is a consequence of these influences and raw ambition.
This year has been incredible for AM Dandy so far, from releasing his debut 16-track album "Secret Garden" to receiving the prestigious Jimi Hendrix Award and many more accomplishments in between. He truly is a natural-born artist and a future household name. To gain traction for his debut album, AM Dandy also released a music video for his single "Eva's Song". The music video is beautifully done and further showcases Am Dandy's gift as a performing artist. With a productive year behind him, AM Dandy still has plans to release another project titled "ἔραμαι" in December 2019. We're always looking forward to hearing more from one of our fan favorites, Am Dandy. Look out for his new release this December! Listen to "Secret Garden" here and read more with Am Dandy below!
Hey AM Dandy, welcome back! For those who aren't aware, how did you first get into music production and composition, and how would you describe your approach to making original music?
Hello team and readers of Buzz Music! Composition and production are something that strongly fascinated me since the beginning. The idea of being able to physically listen to something coming directly from your head, heart, feeling and experience literally blows my mind, still today! Original music in a way describes an intimate aspect of the author/artist. I like to say that when someone listens to my music, it discovers a little part of me, and on the other hand it is my favorite way to introduce myself to the people. As regards my approach to making original music, the situation becomes really hard to explain since it is something so personal and unique tune by tune, that any description wouldn't fit a hundred percent. In general, even if it sounds like a cliche', I just notate melodies or harmonies that plays in my head in a specific moment. That may also sound like Mozart or whoever else, but the truth, in my opinion, is that listening to a lot of music for years or even for a lifetime, makes that not so uncommon.
We're completely captivated yet again by "Secret Garden", you have such a strong and warming presence throughout your tracks. Can you tell us more about your intentions when you first began to curate this project?
Believe me or not some of the tracks on Secret Garden, like Pro Logos and Modern Urban Midnight, were composed when I was fourteen! They obviously evolved during the years, but they are very old. Because the story of Secret Garden started years ago. As you know, self producing an album as a young artist it's tough. Some tunes have been recorded three times in about four years! But fortunately, when I moved in Boston I found at Berklee the perfect people and the right environment to finally do it. My intention was to create something that could talk for me about me, my life, my family, my vices, love and so on. As a debut album, I think this is fundamental. Second point, I wanted to create an album with really outstanding musicians. The incredibles Euan Leslie on drums and Jack Schwenke on bass are still the "muscled" rhythm core of the Group (now with Jason Park and Riccardo Gresino on Keyboards, Piano and Synth); Donghwan Seo and Riccardo Belletti (keyboards) use to be part of it, and some incredible collaborations such as Lorenzo Stif Meynardi (best progressive drummer I know); Pedro Lobato; Kento Tsubosaka, my dad Federico, Alexis Soto, etc.
We also thoroughly enjoyed the music video for "Eva's Song"! Where did you draw inspiration for this particular track and video?
Well the inspiration for the birth of the track is, of course, my beloved partner, Eva Sita, and the music narrates some shades of her character and soul. Stylistically, I think this kind of music well describes my playing in terms of language, approach to the instrument and composition. About the video clip, I wanted something pretty clear and that could simply represent the meaning of the tune in the best way possible. Then, of course, the playing scenes, in my opinion, inevitables in an instrumental music video clip, with Jack Schwenke on Bass and Alexis Soto on Hand Percussions.
What would you say is the most useful piece of criticism you've received thus far within your career? Do you typically take criticism to your advantage?
Fortunately the majority of the feedback I am receiving are pretty good, just a few critics about the amount of notes. I usually try to understand and learn from constructive critics, they are gold. But some of those are about "playing fast equal no emotions" and I strongly disagree with that. As long as you are satisfied and happy, anything you play works for yourself, and it's absolutely fine if this is your goal. If you play also to communicate something, as long as you do it with Pathos, joy and honesty, you are good, no matter at all how fast or slow you are playing. I actually believe that many of the most expressive and passionate musicians are also known for their incredible technical abilities, see Steve Vai; Guthrie Govan; Joe Satriani; Malmsteen; Eric Johnson; Gary Moore and so on. Without mentioning other instruments!
You mentioned back in August that you are working on another project! What can you tell us about that and "ἔραμαι"?
Of course! Actually, I am working on three releases. The earliest one is "ἔραμαι", a love orientated 3 tracks EP that I will release in December 2019. I am recording a crazy Rock and Roll album with a band called Thunderpets, recently founded by me and my brother Stif on drums and lastly, I am working with the AM Dandy Group at the second album, which we are going to release hopefully next summer. I suggest any way to check my socials or my official web site for any possible change of schedule
Thank you so much for chatting with us again! Do you prefer the more intimate recording process over live performance? How do you personally feel when you're performing your music live?
I really do not make a difference. As long as I am playing with good people and musicians I enjoy both at the same level. Performing my tunes live is the biggest gist and joy that music can give back, so I feel blessed. We just started to build our schedule, since the season is starting, but at the moment I can tell you we will perform on December 17th at the Cafe 939 in Boston; March 7th 2020 at Rockwood Music Hall in New York and July 2020 we have a couple of sets at Umbria Jazz Festival. As I mentioned, keep an eye at amdandy.com.
instagram.com/amdandymusic
Surrender to Free Arlo's Inspirational Lyricism
Hop On This Slick Ride With Teflon Quan's, "BiPolar"
Alex2e Reminds Us That It's Not Wrong to Feel, "Lonely"

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Swim England and Adam Peaty launch new Learn To Swim campaign
27 June 2017 Swim England News
Swim England has launched a new campaign to highlight the importance of learning to swim, and the part that the Learn to Swim Awards play in a swimmer's journey.
Our Learn to Swim Awards are one of the top reward and recognition schemes in the world. More than 1.5 million children receive awards each year.
The Awards provide children and young people with confidence, self-worth and a sense of achievement. All of these go towards motivating them to continue swimming.
Olympic champion Adam Peaty was scared of the water as a child. But after great teaching, and recognition though the Swim England Learn to Swim badges and certificates, he overcame his fear of water.
Adam said: "At the start I didn't like swimming at all. I was completely scared of the water and I hated the feeling of not being able to touch the ground. As soon as I knew I enjoyed the water and started having fun, I forgot about the fear.
"The badges were a very prestigious thing, I always wanted that top Award. I was extremely proud to show the Award to my family and friends.
"I remember seeing them on my wall and I always wanting the next one. But I never thought it would take me to an Olympic gold."
Reward and recognition is an important part of learning to swim
Swim England Learn to Swim Director Jon Glenn added: "Reward and recognition is an essential part of any child's learn to swim experience. We have launched our refreshed Awards, making them more appropriate and appealing for children.
Learn To Swim Awards
There are more than 100 Awards available for children following the Learn to Swim Programme. Click here to find out more on our Learn To Swim site.
"That experience of earning their first Swim England badge stays with children for the rest of their lives. We are delighted to be working with our Learn to Swim providers to make sure that every child gets to enjoy that special moment."
There are more than 100 Awards available to give to children who are following the Learn to Swim Programme.
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HypoglycemiaMedicine/Drugs
Faster Insulin: Extracellular Action
Kristen Dascoli June 11, 2013
Until we find a biological cure for diabetes, help transplanted islets survive and thrive, or discover how to regenerate normal insulin secretion in a pancreas whose beta cells have been ravaged by auto-immune attack, the best science and technology can do is develop ways to make man-made insulin act more like its naturally produced counterpart. The most promising developments today revolve around increasing the speed of insulin absorption and shortening its "tail," the time it spends in our bodies at elevated levels. Insulin Nation has covered various approaches to faster insulin, including Mannkind's Afrezza® inhalable insulin therapy [Inhalable Insulin: A Breathtaking Development], heating the area around infusion or injection sites [Faster Insulin: A Heated Exchange], or intradermal injections using super-short needles [Faster Insulin: Short and Sweet].
Another company closing in on improving the speed of insulin action is Halozyme Therapeutics, (www.halozyme.com) a biopharmaceutical developer located in San Diego. Halozyme focuses on human enzymes that temporarily alter a specific component of the extracellular matrix (ECM), the "glue" that holds all our cells and connects them to tissues. Hylenex®, one of the company's products, is currently being tested in Phase IV clinical trials in combination with rapid-onset insulins to make pre-meal bolus insulin work faster and disappear more quickly from the body.
Hylenex® is a purified preparation of the enzyme recombinant human hyaluronidase (rHuPH20). Previous clinical trials conducted by Halozyme have demonstrated that formulating the rHuPH20 enzyme with insulin or administering it before a bolus dose alters insulin profiles to become more like those found in people who don't have diabetes. So, how does rHuPH20 work, and what does it do?
Opening Paths Through A Forest Of Skin
An artist's rendering showing the structure of skin, with tree-like trunks and branches representing proteins like collagen and bushes on the "ground" representing hyaluronan. Halozyme's lead enzyme, rHuPH20, temporarily opens small paths through the "forest" by degrading hyaluronan, which is like trimming the bushes.
If you struggled through the previous description, here is a simplified version of what rHuPH20 does. Imagine that the area just below your skin surface is like a forest, full of trees and bushes.. Hyaluronan, a short lived substance in the skin, is like the bushes between the trees; other proteins in the skin like collagen would be the trees thenselves. Halozyme's lead enzyme, rHuPH20, temporarily opens small paths through the forest by degrading hyaluronan, which is like trimming the bushes. With the "forest" floor now more accessible, a co-injected drug, like insulin, reaches its targets more easily, is dispersed over a greater surface area, and gets absorbed into the capillary beds more quickly. As a result, traditional subcutaneous delivery of insulin, either by injection or infusion, occurs more quickly.
Unlike trees or bushes exposed to defoliants, however, the bushes– hyaluronan – grow back very quickly. Within 24-48 hours, the structure of the skin returns to what it was before treatment. The rebirth is not miraculous; the average 155 lb. person has about 15 grams of hyaluronan in their body, and a third of it is degraded and synthesized every day of their lives. The novelty of Halozyme's approach is marrying the properties of recombinant hyaluronidase to various drug therapies.
Initially, Halozyme focused on using rHuPH20 to create ways to change intravenous therapies to subcutaneous solutions. Subcutaneous injections may be preferable to intravenous drug delivery (IV) for many reasons, not the least of which is patient comfort. But, a challenge to switching from IV to subcutaneous therapy is that some of the drug gets caught up in the skin tissue, and only a portion of it actually gets absorbed into the body. Halozyme's technology is intended to offer a solution to this problem, by temporarily speeding up drug absorption as described above. The company has current partnerships focusing on more effective drug absorption based on its rHuPH20 technology with Roche, Baxter U.S., ViroPharma, and Pfizer. In each case, the enzyme rHuPH20 may help make the switch from IV to subcutaneous therapies easier.
Analog Insulin: A Promise Half-Fulfilled?
The original concept behind analog, or rapid-onset, insulin, was replacing a dose of regular insulin that needed to be injected a half-hour or more before a meal. The thought was that you could take the faster onset insulin just before eating, which appealed to many people because it gave them a measure of control in an unpredictable world, where mealtimes don't always conform to a rigid schedule. Rapid-onset insulin was seen as a great success, because it did demonstrate better after-meal glucose control when compared to regular insulin injected before eating..
Then continuous glucose monitors entered the picture, and they revealed a problem to patients and doctors alike. According to Dr. Jay Skyler, Professor of Medicine, Pediatrics and Psychology at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, "patients could see that rapid-acting insulin analogs were still not rapid enough. If you had a high carbohydrate meal, at a half hour, 1 hour, or 1.5 hours, you saw significant elevations in glucose levels. The rapid-acting insulin analog wasn't peaking until after the meal did."
In this context, it isn't surprising that, Halozyme identified insulin as an opportunity for improving current diabetes therapies. The large molecules of rapid onset insulin take time to break down into smaller particles that can penetrate the extracellular matrix and then be absorbed into the bloodstream. This is one of the reasons that rapid onset insulin does not work as quickly as its naturally secreted counterpart. Halozyme has attempted to address that challenge by focusing not on the molecular structure of insulin, as others have, but on the structure of tissue. By temporarily degrading hyaluronan, insulin administered with rHuPH20 is absorbed more quickly. The enzyme has been clinically tested in trials with all rapid analog insulins currently sold in the U.S.
Coformulation: Adding A "Special Ingredient"
3-D model of recombinant human PH20 hyaluronidase.
There are two ways rHuPH20 can be used to produce faster rapid onset insulin. One approach is co-formulation with insulins before it is injected.
"In some of our earlier clinical studies, we tested rHuPH20 formulated with insulin analogs," says Dr. Gregory Frost, co-founder of Halozyme and its CEO. "In these trials, the injected insulin was clearly absorbed faster. These studies also suggested the glucose levels weren't spiking as high after meals because the insulin was getting in faster, in time to deal with the glucose load of the meal."
Physicians who have also tested rHuPH20 formulated with insulin concur. "The concept was to use hyaluronidase (rHuPH20, the active ingredient in Hylenex®) to increase the rate of absorption by creating a coformulation with insulin," says Dr. Skyler, "That's the study that my colleagues and I did. The coformulation did exactly what it was supposed to do. The insulin worked faster," he reports. Halozyme is continuing to explore these coformulation studies, which must go through the entire FDA approval process because the mixtures constitute a new drug with the insulin and enzyme formulated together.
A "Killer App" For Pumps?
The other way to use rHuPH20 is pre-administration of the enzyme by itself using insulin pumps. The concept is to infuse just a single dose of Hylenex® (an FDA approved formulation of the enzyme alone) when pump patients change infusion sites every two to three days. Halozyme is currently enrolling trial subjects in a Phase IV trial to further observe the effect of Hylenex® on insulin absorption, along with other results that include a variety of endpoints: A1C, postprandial glucose, and rates of hypoglycemia all will be studied and reported on.
Earlier clinical trials conducted with pump patients showed another equally promising observation and important result: a consistency of insulin absorption over the three days between infusion site changes if rHuPH20 was given to subjects before they began to pump again. "The patients received a single dose of rHuPH20 upfront and then wore the pump as they normally do," says Frost. "What we saw in these clinical trials was that the insulin absorption profile on day 3 was very similar to the insulin absorption profile on day 1. This might provide not only the 'fast in and shorter duration' of mealtime administration, but also more consistent insulin absorption every time you bolus. And that might offer a meaningful improvement for people who are on an insulin pump."
Finally, in other clinical trials conducted by Halozyme, the insulin products formulated with rHuPH20 appeared to have a much shorter "tail," or much less of a residual effect on glucose levels that may lead to hypoglycemic events, than current rapid-onset products. The shorter duration of insulin when combined with rHuPH20 might lead to fewer hypoglycemic events.
If all this turns out to be true, it would be good news for pump makers, who seem to need new evidence to stimulate infusion adoption among multiple daily injectors. Many who resist pump adoption report that they see injecting insulin as more convenient, even if the insulin action is more erratic. Tighter control combined with less risk of hypoglycemic events might be just the thing pump makers need to energize sales.
Creating Another "Aha" Moment
Halozyme's work has attracted many advocates among leading professionals who specialize in diabetes. One is Dr. Daniel Einhorn, Medical Director of the Scripps Whittier Diabetes Institute and current President of the American College of Endocrinology. "When we first started using the analog insulin" he recalls, "it was very clear early to the first users, physicians, and nurses, that people were getting better postprandial control and fewer hypoglycemic episodes with these insulins. And patients felt better. But it took awhile – years – for that realization to hit the greater healthcare community. So what I would like to see with the ongoing Hylenex clinical trials is a reconfirmation of the 'Aha' experience, where using a faster, more predictable insulin enables you to gain better control."
Dr. Einhorn also stresses the consultative nature of the current Hylenex® trials. "The scientists and researchers can do the best they can," he says, " but it is really the people with diabetes who are using pumps who are going to be the lead scientists to identify better therapies. This is a very live and very democratic process. With other disease states, the physician gives you something and the patient responds to it. With these patients, we're looking to them to give us advice on how to best use this tool. So it is much more collaborative. I am very excited for that."
Medicine/Drugs Pumps
Medicine/Drugs
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Paramedic Fired for Hypoglycemia Wins in Court
Kristen Dascoli
Four-Legged Islet Factories: The Pigs of Auckland Island
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Playing Sports Without D-Mom Supervision?
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A Basal Insulin Primer
Games Cells Play: Protecting Islet Transplants
Bigger Capsules Keep Islet Cells Safe
Selling a Lifetime of Insulin for $3


Ha Giang, a gorgeous province in the spectacular Northeast region of Vietnam, is the land of mighty mountains, tortuous roads spreading out to the eternity, charming colorful flowers and cozy hearts of local people. Although Vietnam is experiencing a developing era, Ha Giang, a rocky plateau, still keeps its pristine condition and is waiting for beautiful spirits to explore and discover. Travel to Ha Giang and let your soul immerse in the beating heart of mountains and forests, let your mind free by the winds and dreaming waterfalls, let your heart be charmed with the fascinating colors of blossoming flowers and the golden farm brightening up under the sunshine, you will unquestionably love Ha Giang before you can possibly realize. Rustic houses and ethnic people with happy smiles in spite of difficulties in daily life in Ha Giang will bring you a totally, completely different impression which nowhere else can obtain. Explore the rich culture of Ha Giang through Khau Vai Love market which is full of locals in special conventional customs or enjoys the ethnic traditional food. Join our Ha Giang tours to indulge in the charms of Ha Giang.
Go Vietnam Tours values our customers and is enthusiastic about bringing them the greatest traveling experiences and worthy Ha Giang tours. Just drop us an email or give us a call, and a personal travel consultant will help you prepare a personalized Ha Giang tour or Vietnam tour that satisfies all of your needs and meet all of your expectations.


text:
Against Determinism—A Brief Reply to Jerry Coyne
William Tomos Edwards
03 Sep 2019 4 min read
In my previous Quillette article, I offered what was intended to be an intellectual history of agency, drawing partly upon the traditions of the continental school of philosophy. I contended that those intellectuals most resistant to deterministic explanations for human affairs are unconsciously, and fiercely, trying to protect the historical legacy of agency from normative determinism. I linked the rise of agency to the rise of secular-humanism, and argued that a belief in agency and free will could therefore be understood as a new version of Pascal's Wager.
This provided Coyne with a great deal of ammunition for his critique of my piece; he drew many parallels between my arguments for believing in free will and the apologetics offered by religious fundamentalists for their belief in God. However, the arguments for some notion of free will are about as hard to shake as the sense that we have it, and I don't think they are shaken much by Coyne's hard determinism.
In this brief reply to Coyne, I'll also take my cue from Ben Burgis's response to my piece, and elaborate on his arguments in defence of compatibilism.
The Utilitarian Case for Free Will
Coyne and I both cited studies in support of our arguments. During a systematic, transparent, open-access search and review of the literature, I found 65 studies shedding direct light on the "utilitarian question." As Coyne pointed out, belief in free will certainly seems to be associated with retributive attitudes and credulity. However, the evidence also strongly suggests that belief in free will is positively correlated with subjective well-being, tangible success in life, along with pro-social and compassionate behaviour. Additionally, people tend to embrace contradictory intuitions of cause and effect and agency, which leads them to favour compatibilism. There is some evidence to suggest that when belief in free will is undermined, "low-level" adaptive responses are also undermined at a behavioural and neurological level.
The unambiguous conclusion seems to be that people are better off believing in either libertarian free will (which grants us complete agency) or the intuitive compatibilism (which grants us compromised agency) that they tend to favour. A theological variant of Coyne's determinism may have helped to make the hardships of pre-industrial society easier to bear, but the secular variant is a marginal viewpoint with marginal adaptive value in marginal contexts.
The Conscious Case for Libertarian Free Will
Coyne dismisses the hard problem of consciousness and cites a Sean Carroll article claiming that the "physics of everyday life" are "completely understood." In the same sense that we've only recently understood some aspects of how bicycles work, maybe Coyne thinks that we will soon examine consciousness through the lens of a "Newtonian regime," and say "Aha! So that's how it all happens!" But Coyne ought to know that my evocation of the mysteries of consciousness isn't simply an "argument from ignorance." We are not discussing natural phenomena for which we have a robust third-person view, and needlessly attributing supernatural properties to them. We are trying to understand how a first-person perspective can even exist in the first place.
Coyne dismisses the relevance of quantum phenomena here. While it's true that there is no conclusive evidence for non-trivial quantum effects in the brain, it is an area of ongoing research with promising avenues, and the observer effect heavily implies a connection. Coyne correctly points out that the fundamental randomness at the quantum level does not grant libertarian free will. Libertarian free will implies that humans produce output from a process that is neither random nor deterministic. What process could fit the bill?
Well, if the human decision-making process recruits one or more irremovable singularities, and achieves fundamentally unpredictable output from those, I would consider that a sufficient approximation to libertarian free will. Furthermore, a singularity could be a good approximation to an "agent." Singularities do occur in nature, at the center of every black hole, and quite possibly at the beginning of the universe, and quantum phenomena leave plenty of room open for them.
There's a plausible case to be made for libertarian free will with the mysteries of consciousness being what they are, and the science will continue to advance towards vindication or falsification.
Imagination Changes Everything; the Case for Compatibilist Free Will
In his essay, Burgis exposes "contra-causal free will" to be a straw man and intuition pump. Want, impetus, and desire are essentially deterministic forces. Free will to not want happiness is indeed free will not worth wanting.
Burgis's essay reveals another intuition pump—the idea that free will concerns discreet options A or B, such as to push or not to push a button. However, the human imagination changes everything. Because we can speculate about and consider the outcomes of different choices, we can attempt to custom build our future. Fundamentally deterministic desire is less important than the course of action we construct around our impetus.
Absolute determinism could be intuitively visualized as a chain of dominoes. Neither the chain nor any domino in particular has a past or a future. Whatever happens to each comes down to the last force they made contact with. People, on the other hand, can run simulations on what might have been, and what could be, all day long. Even if it is all achieved through classical physics and a computational mind, your imagination is one hell of an achievement.
If we were philosophical dominos we would simply be on the fly from moment to moment responding to things as they happen. But, as it happens, we can simulate—or generate—an outcome that we want to effect and then act in an attempt to make it so. We can simulate many paths, and while we're putting one of them into motion we retain some capacity to veto it. If the courses of action that we may create are best modeled as hemmed in, and finite, then we are comfortably within the realm of compatibilism.
The concept of a singularity becomes important once again here because if you can access some kind of instantaneous infinity and your options are fundamentally, non-trivially infinite, then it would seem you have escaped compatibilism and achieved a more profound freedom.
Mainstream physics tells us that nature draws things with function from infinity and nothingness. Biological life has every incentive to evolve to be able to do the same. To do so seems to confer a certain ownership. As Jean-Paul Sartre once observed, "Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does."
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We're halfway through Buddhist Action Month, a pan-Buddhist festival of social action which has spread from Britain to many countries.
With their own particular BAM theme of '21st century Bodhisattvas', Triratna sanghas are hard at work (and play) in Turkey, Ireland, Australia, Germany, New Zealand and the USA, as well as Britain.
Over on The Buddhist Centre Online's special BAM page you can follow their activities – and view the short video talks we're posting to keep everyone inspired, from speakers in various countries, including Guhyapati in Spain, featured here.
Keep watching the BAM space for news of events as they happen.
Visit the pan-Buddhist BAM space on Facebook.
Buddhist Action Month is a project initiated by the Network of Buddhist Organisations UK in 2012.


This Employment Agreement ("Agreement") is made as of July 14, 2016 ("Effective Date"), between PriceSmart, Inc. (the "Company"), and Francisco Velasco (the "Executive").
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This Thirty-Second Amendment to Employment Agreement is made and entered into as of October 1, 2013, by and between PriceSmart, Inc., a Delaware Corporation ("Employer") and Robert M. Gans ("Executive").
This Twenty-Sixth Amendment to Employment Agreement is made and entered into as of March 1, 2013, by and between PriceSmart, Inc., a Delaware Corporation ("Employer") and Thomas Martin ("Executive").
This Twenty-Fourth Amendment to Employment Agreement is made and entered into as of March 1, 2013 by and between PriceSmart, Inc., a Delaware Corporation ("Employer") and Brud Drachman ("Executive").
This Twenty-Third Amendment to Employment Agreement is made and entered into as of March 1, 2013, by and between PriceSmart, Inc., a Delaware Corporation ("Employer") and John Hildebrandt ("Executive").
This Twenty-Third Amendment to Employment Agreement is made and entered into as of January 1, 2013 by and between PriceSmart, Inc., a Delaware Corporation ("Employer") and Brud Drachman ("Executive").
This Twenty-Fifth Amendment to Employment Agreement is made and entered into as of January 1, 2013, by and between PriceSmart, Inc., a Delaware Corporation ("Employer") and Thomas Martin ("Executive").
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Olga Antonova - a female celebrity - born on Wednesday December 22nd 1937, in Unknown.
Olga Antonova is the philanthropist and humanitarian who is deeply concerned about the state of the world, for which she has great compassion and idealism. She has a utopian personality, and will spend her life trying to realize some aspect of her utopian dream, sacrificing money, time, and energy for a better world.
Her broad outlook on life allows Antonova to see the big picture, and to often shy away from dealing with the minute details. That is why Olga Antonova attracts people who can fit into her larger plans and take over the areas she considers uninteresting. Consequently, Olga evaluates people on the basis of what they can do for the larger cause. She is a true egalitarian, rarely prejudiced and would not accept social biases of people.
Olga Antonova has a romantic personality, but her love is more impersonal as she tends to be focused on her dreams instead. When not in harmony with her true nature, Olga can fall to moodiness, or become aloof, and withdrawn. She can also become timid, uncertain, and ungrateful, putting the blame for her troubles on others or the world. She is often disappointed by the realities of life, her own shortcomings, and those of others, and is relentlessly driven to improve upon it all - striving for greater accomplishments. This is Olga's life-lesson - to accept the natural limitations of the world and its habitants in order to make it possible for her to enjoy life more fully.
Olga Antonova is a person of thinking and planning.
But if she ignores the details in favor of the bigger picture, others might view Antonova as undisciplined with details, and not appreciate her great planning skills.
April 25th 2019 meets Olga Antonova upbeat and playful.
Antonova's attractiveness and her ability to influence others make today a productive day in social events and other personal or business encounters.


People studying and painting sacred images and icons should be aware of the theological underpinnings of a specific image. This especially applies to the major personalities of the Church's early history (AD 65 – AD 800). Sacred artists do not need to become theologians or historians of this period in the Church's history! Yet, they do need to acquaint themselves with some basic facts. As artists we must be faithful to Church Tradition and cultural traditions.
My posts will present some of these key figures in chronological order. A very brief, one paragraph or less description of their major contributions will be provided, and if possible, a sacred icon of them.
Russian Icon from the city of Kiev painted within the 11th century. Notice that there are many others behind them.
I will also provide you with the names of Councils of Bishops (such as Nicaea, Ephesus, Chalcedon, etc) and their key teaching (in brief sentences!). These Councils codified specific truths that became dogmas of the Catholic Church (Eastern and Western Rites). It follows that the Church's sacred art developed in tandem with the understanding of its approved theological dogmas – all heavily influenced and directed by the Holy Spirit, Apostolic Tradition, and Sacred Scripture.
It is also important to remember that the four criteria for being considered a "Father" (exceptional teacher of the Church) are: Antiquity, existing between the years AD 65 – AD 800; Evidence that his teachings and writings were accepted by the bishops of the Church; Orthodoxy, true and faithful teachings; and Piety, the holiness of the teacher.
The information I am presenting is based on twelve sources.
These sources will discuss teachers who were called Apostolic Fathers (men who knew, or were taught by those who did know the Apostles; I covered three of the Apostolic Fathers in the post of February 3rd). I will also discuss other periods which saw the rise of the Latin Fathers (wrote in Latin), Greek Fathers (wrote in Greek), Syriac Fathers (wrote in a dialect of Aramaic), and the Desert Fathers (monks living in caves or early monasteries in the Egyptian deserts). I will list my sources (found below) in a simple bibliography.
Please remember this is certainly not an exhaustive list! It will provide you with a starting point, and if you are writing a paper for your studies it will point you in the right direction.
Aquilina, Mike. The Fathers of the Church (expanded edition). Our Sunday Visitor Publishing Division: Huntington, Indiana, 2006. Note well: this is an excellent introduction and critical if you were to purchase only two of these sources – this book and the CD set from Dr. D'Ambrosio.
Benedict XVI (Pope Emeritus). Church Fathers – From St. Clement of Rome to St. Augustine. Ignatius Press: San Francisco, 2008.
Benedict XVI (Pope Emeritus). Church Fathers and Teachers – From St. Leo the Great to Peter Lombard. Ignatius Press: San Francisco, 2010.
Cannuyer, Christian. Coptic Egypt – The Christians of the Nile. Harry N. Abrams, Inc.: New York, 2001.
Catechism of the Catholic Church – Second Edition. Libreria Editrice Vaticana: Vatican City, 1997. (The source citations at the back of the Catechism, pages 741 – 752, are very helpful because it links specific Fathers of the early Church to passages within the Catechism).
D"Ambrosio, Marcellino. When the Church was Young – Voices of the Early Fathers. Servant Books: Cincinnati, 2014.
Hahn, Scott and Aquilina, Mike. Living the Mysteries – A Guide for Unfinished Christians. Our Sunday Visitor Publishing Division: Huntington, Indiana, 2003.
Nichols, Aidan, O.P. Rome and the Eastern Churches. Ignatius Press: San Francisco, 2010.
Hitchcock, James. The History of the Catholic Church – From the Apostolic Age to the Third Millennium. Ignatius Press: San Francisco, 2012.
Staniforth, Maxwell. Early Christian Writings. Penguin: Baltimore, 1975.
Willis, John R., S.J. The Teachings of the Church Fathers. Ignatius Press: San Francisco, 2010. Note well: This book is a wonderful source for the Early Church Fathers and teachers speaking in their own words about specific issues that concern the Church: the idea of One God, the Trinity, the Person of Jesus, the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, the Sacraments, Grace, the hierarchy of Orders, Sin, the Apocalypse (the Last Things), etc.
I pray that this helps you in your understanding of Patristics (the study of the writings of the Early Fathers of the Church) and how they influenced early sacred artists in correctly portraying their subjects.
Thanks for visiting with me. I hope you have a relaxing weekend.