megna2Fargo (CSi)    A company that was transporting an inmate, Joseph Megna, who escaped and hid for nearly a day in a North Dakota cornfield in 2011 is suing its insurance carrier for refusing to cover fines and reimbursement costs related to the escape and an ensuing manhunt.

Megna took the opportunity of a prison van rest stop break near Tower City, take off into the cornfield.

A guard had left him and another prisoner unattended and hadn’t noticed he’d picked his cuffs, waist chain and leg irons with a bobby pin he’d found on the floor of the van.

The escape led to a 22-hour search for Megna, who had been on his way from Florida to face first-degree child molestation charges in Washington state.

Farmers deputized to help hunt for Megna said it cost them a little more than $35,000, including the cost of harvesting the corn in which he was hiding.

The insurance company also refused to pay a $10,000 civil penalty incurred for the transport company’s violations of Jeanna’s Act.

The Forum reports that the transport company, Extradition Transport of America, of Riverside, Calif., filed suit last month in U.S. District Court in Fargo against its insurer, Houston Casualty Company.

The lawsuit says that it refused to pay for the cost of the search in Barnes County in part because media reports featured a conference call in which transport company representatives assured law enforcement officials from Cass and Barnes counties that insurance would take care of reimbursing them.

The lawsuit claims that Houston Casualty breached its duty to its client by not hiring the firm its own lawyer in the matter.

Houston Casualty hasn’t filed a response to the lawsuit yet.