Ex Parte Allstate Life Insurance Co.

Allstate Life Insurance Company and its agent Eric Glover, defendants in eight civil actions filed in the Barbour Circuit Court, petition for a writ of mandamus directing Judge L. Bernard Smithart to withdraw his orders of January 19, 1999, and February 17, 1999. His January 19, 1999, order granted a hearing on the plaintiffs' motion to vacate previous judgments of dismissal in seven of those eight cases. He issued two orders on February 17, 1999 — one vacating those judgments of dismissal and the other vacating a November 3, 1998, order disallowing the use of certain pattern-and-practice…