State Farm, the biggest U.S. auto insurer, agreed to pay $250 million on the brink of a trial in which customers claimed the company tried to rig the Illinois justice system to wipe out a $1 billion jury verdict from 19 years ago.
Customers were seeking as much as $8.5 billion in damages in a civil racketeering trial that had been set to start Tuesday in federal court in East St. Louis. The company denied any wrongdoing in settling the claim, according to court papers. A judge granted preliminary approval to the accord and set a final fairness hearing for December.