A Louisiana state appellate court was recently faced with the question of the applicability of Louisiana’s Valued Policy Law in a Katrina-related case, in the case of Landry v. Louisiana Citizens Property Insurance Company, and the Louisiana state court followed the holding of the Fifth Circuit’s decision in Chauvin v. State Farm Fire & Casualty Co.  In so holding, the state appellate court ruled that insureds who suffered a total loss from a hurricane are not entitled to recover the full amount of their loss if the loss was due to both covered and non-covered perils. 

Katrina Justice, Inc., a New Orleans not for profit corporation, recently petitioned for a writ of mandamus in the Civil District Court, Parish of New Orleans, State of Louisiana.  The defendants in the civil action include the City of New Orleans, Mayor C. Ray Nagin,  the Orleans Parish School Board and Superintendent Darryl Kilbert, as well as unidentified insurance companies. 

As previously reported here, a Northern District of Alabama judge recently asked federal prosecutors to charge Mississippi plaintiff’s attorney Richard “Dickie” Scruggs with criminal contempt.  It is alleged that Scruggs violated a preliminary injunction issued in December 2006, which ordered him to turn over all documents secretly copied by two whistleblowers, Corgi Rigsby Moran and Kerri Rigsby. 

Despite warnings from the Bush Administration, as reported here that it would not support any legislation expanding the National Flood Insurance Program (“NFIP”) to include windstorm coverage, the House Financial Services Committee approved the Flood Insurance Reform and Modernization Act of 2007 (H.R. 3121), which contains just such an amendment to the NFIP.