KCK state senator, BPU member asks judge to dismiss insurance suit against him
A Wyandotte County District Court judge may decide this summer whether to dismiss the local government’s lawsuit against a longtime Kansas state senator.
The Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kansas, is suing state Sen. David Haley for allegedly using his local office on the Kansas City Board of Public Utilities to get health and insurance benefits for his long-term partner without first providing required documentation of a common law marriage.
The government maintains that Haley wrote his partner’s name down as his spouse on tax forms. Haley, meanwhile, has previously said that BPU staff gave him permission to mark the insurance forms as he did. He also told The Star that he saw the lawsuit as an effort to defame him.
Haley is a member of the BPU’s board, has a seat on the Unified Government’s Economic Development and Finance Committee and is the longest-serving member of the Kansas Legislature. He filed a motion to dismiss the case against him in late March.
Twenty-ninth District Court Judge William Mahoney will consider that motion for dismissal during a 9 a.m. hearing on June 12, according to court records.
The lawsuit, filed in January, alleged that Haley intentionally misled staff at BPU about the status of his relationship with his partner in order to collect insurance benefits for his partner through Blue Cross Blue Shield of Kansas City. The Unified Government is suing Haley for fraudulent misrepresentation, negligent misrepresentation, unjust enrichment, breach of contract and fraudulent inducement, according to court records.
The lawsuit asks that the court grant the Unified Government more than $125,000 in compensatory damages.
In Haley’s motion to dismiss the case, he maintains he had approval from BPU staff to mark his partner on tax forms as he did, that he was not untruthful and that any administrative error that resulted in this dispute did not constitute fraud, according to court documents.
“With actual knowledge of the relationship status, the employer approved the enrollment and provided coverage for three years,” according to the motion to dismiss. “Because Plaintiff’s own admissions establish BPU’s actual knowledge of the true relationship status, no actionable misrepresentation can have occurred.”
The lawsuit’s filing came just months after the BPU’s governing board fired Haley as board president for the same allegations. Haley still holds a seat on the board and won another term during last year’s general election.
