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Author Topic: victims lose in appeals court
Jay the Obscure
Liker Of Jazz
Member # 19

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quote:
W ORLEANS - Hurricane Katrina victims whose homes and businesses were destroyed when floodwaters breached levees in the 2005 storm cannot recover money from their insurance companies for the damages, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday.
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The case could affect thousands of rebuilding residents and business owners in Louisiana. Robert Hartwig, chief economist at the industry-funded Insurance Information Institute in New York, said in June that a ruling against the industry could have cost insurers $1 billion.

"This event was excluded from coverage under the plaintiffs' insurance policies, and under Louisiana law, we are bound to enforce the unambiguous terms of their insurance contracts as written," Judge Carolyn King wrote for a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

As a result, the panel found those who filed the suit "are not entitled to recover under their policies," she said.

More than a dozen insurance companies, including Allstate and Travelers, were defendants.

The decision overturns a ruling by U.S. District Judge Stanwood Duval Jr., who in November sided with policyholders arguing that language excluding water damage from some of their insurance policies was ambiguous.

Duval said the policies did not distinguish between floods caused by an act of God � such as excessive rainfall � and floods caused by an act of man, which would include the levee breaches following Katrina's landfall.

But the appeals panel concluded that "even if the plaintiffs can prove that the levees were negligently designed, constructed, or maintained and that the breaches were due to this negligence, the flood exclusions in the plaintiffs' policies unambiguously preclude their recovery."

"Regardless of what caused the failure of the flood-control st



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B.J.
Space Cadet
Member # 858

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That news brief was a bit confusing. According to the actual opinion released by the court, flood damage was specifically not covered by their policies. Which I can understand the insurance companies not wanting to cover that in New Orleans. The lawsuit contended that the water damage (which is covered) to the homes & businesses was caused by the levy break, not by a flood. The court disagreed, saying it was caused by a flood, and therefore denied the suit.

Link to court's published opinion

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Fabrux
Epic Member
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So much for New Orleans getting rebuilt.

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Sol System
two dollar pistol
Member # 30

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The Threatening Storm

quote:
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (fema) was the scapegoat, but the real culprit was the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which bungled the levees that formed the city's man-made defenses and ravaged the wetlands that once formed its natural defenses. Americans were outraged by the government's response, but they still haven't come to grips with the government's responsibility for the catastrophe.
(I'm not sure if the lowercase acronyms are just an annoying house style at Time these days, or some sort of web-related error.)
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Jason Abbadon
Rolls with the punches.
Member # 882

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quote:
Originally posted by Fabrux:
So much for New Orleans getting rebuilt.

Oh, it'll get rebuilt- by all the vulture investors buying up on foreclosed properties.
Expect an eventual government incentive package to redevelop the area...just dont expect the poor people that used to live there to ever be able to return.

It happened that way in a lot of Miami and Homestead (FL) after Hurricane Andrew, but not on this scale.

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Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering.
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TSN
I'm... from Earth.
Member # 31

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"The Federal Emergency Management Agency (fema) was the scapegoat, but the real culprit was the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers..."

Not exactly true, I think. The Corps of Engineers were responsible for the fact that the levees broke in the first place. FEMA were responsible for the fact that people didn't get rescued when the levees broke.

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Jason Abbadon
Rolls with the punches.
Member # 882

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Dont forget all that ice that was finally allowed to melt a couple of months ago.

Or how they knew far less than the news stations did- for day at a time.

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Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering.
-Aeschylus, Agamemnon

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