Insurance Law

Federal jury returns $21 million verdict against insurer in Katrina case in Louisiana

By David Rossmiller

Here's a case I've been meaning to get to for a few days -- Marketfare Annunciation, LLC v. United Fire & Casualty Ins. Co.  On June 6 a federal jury in the Eastern District of Louisiana, in New Orleans, handed down a $21 million against United Fire and in favor of Marketfare, a small local grocery store chain, over Katrina damage.

The insured claimed losses under its property insurance business interruption insurance because of covered wind damage, from what I can make out in the pleadings.  The insurer said the losses were due to uncovered flood, and it appears the insured accepted flood insurance payments of some $6 million.  A substantial part of the verdict, as I read the pleadings, was for business interruption insurance, but the insurer's position was that some of the chain's stores could have been up and running in a month, and that no money was owed for interruption from an uncovered cause like flood. The insured, in turn, said United Fire adjusted the loss in bad faith and put pressure on an engineer to alter his loss report. 

Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of time to look more closely at the pleadings -- I hope what I've written here is accurate, but someone may want to correct me or provide more information.  By my rough calculation, some $6 million of the award was for statutory bad faith damages. I see from the docket that the insurer is moving to appeal.

Here is a copy of the judgment, and here is a copy of the Pre-Trial Order.  Finally, here is an Associated Press story on the verdict, doesn't give a lot more information.  

Full post as published by Insurance Coverage Law Blog on June 10, 2008 (boomark / email).