Day: August 28, 2008

Renfroe makes it a discovery duet – as out of tune with reality as State Farm

Two voices singing the same old song – second verse same as the first, a little louder and a little worse.

Given that their Motion for Leave only seeks leave to request the production of documents directly from State Farm, Renfroe does not intend to respond to the Motion for Leave.

That said, Renfroe opposes any suggestion that the Relators should be given leave of court to conduct expedited discovery from any party at this stage of the litigation.

With respect to the Motion for Extension, Renfroe opposes the extension to the extent that Renfroe’s agreement would in any way suggest that Renfroe consents to the Relators’ proposed discovery requests.

Renfroe, as a courtesy to counsel opposite, does not otherwise oppose the Relators’ new counsel being given an extension of time to respond to pending dispositive motions beyond the deadlines previously set by this Court’s August 6th Order.

Renfroe’s agreement to a short extension should neither be read nor interpreted as constituting Renfroe’s approval of or assent to the Relators being granted leave of this Court to conduct their proposed discovery which is clearly improper as shown in State Farm’s response filed on August 27, 2008.

The response speaks for itself – deny claims, deny discovery, deny justice is a consistent pattern in this toss them a moon pie crowd with its let them eat cake attitude and 40 acres and a mule sense of justice.

Gustav Update: Mississippi and Louisiana Make Preparations

Gustav

For a while I was feeling a bit more confident on the path of Gustav but the 4:00PM advisory shifted the track back to the east.

Since I have linked the 5 day forecast track to it’s source check back to this post as the track automatically updates when Weather Underground posts the new track every three hours.

Also I’m linking the models from Mike’s Weather Page further down this post.

Going from east to west the Sun Herald is reporting the City of Pascagoula has declared a state of emergency. Some event cancellations have also been announced. City leaders in Gulfport met early this afternoon. The Sun Herald has also put up a Hurricane info page which contains some very useful information. Continue reading “Gustav Update: Mississippi and Louisiana Make Preparations”

Rebecca Mowbray on Louisiana Insurance Litigation

There have been several reporters do excellent work on the societal issues Katrina brought to the fore here in the GO Zone. Chris Joyner at the Clarion Ledger has done several excellent stories on affordable housing issues for example. The list is too long to mention everyone but two reporters stand out from the rest to us here at slabbed for their coverage of the resulting Katrina insurance litigation, Anita Lee at the Sun Herald and Rebecca Mowbray at the Times Picayune. Today I highly recommend Ms Mowbray’s story Insurers Use Federal Cash to Help Pay Claims which contains a great synopysis of Louisiana insurance litigation. First she starts with a history lesson and then identifies the major issues:

The overarching question was whether the flood exclusions on insurance policies applied when the flood was caused by a levee breach. In other words, was a man-made flood a flood, and could insurance companies be held responsible for paying for it?

In August 2007, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court decision and said a flood was a flood. Homeowners’ insurance companies were off the hook, because people could have bought a flood policy from the government. Continue reading “Rebecca Mowbray on Louisiana Insurance Litigation”

State Farm singing second verse same as the first, a little bit louder and a little bit worse in documents filed yesterday

OK, Scouts, you don’t have to sing along; but, you do need to know that no matter what the farmer said, it did do harm when the cow kicked Nellie in the stomach in the barn.  Nellie was fine, just a little stunned, but the cow broke its leg and was done.

State Farm filed a Response and Memorandum Wednesday singing the verse about the stolen [sic] documents and broken [sic] seal a little bit louder and a little bit worse. in opposition to the Rigsbys motion to propound expedited document requests.  Needless to say, they weren’t singing to a choir here – not with that songbook; not with all of the contradicting information readily available to those willing to search.

(1) courts have held that employees with a good faith reason to believe their employer is engaged in unlawful conduct “[have] a legitimate interest in preserving evidence of [their employer’s] unlawful employment practices.

(2) the court also dealt with the issue of whether a former employee could be compelled to return materials taken from the employer that might demonstrate fraud. The court responded in the negative, finding less onerous ways of preventing this information from being used…

(3)…it is paramount to recognize that the duties of confidentiality and loyalty are qualified and must acquiesce to matters of public interest irrespective of whether those duties flow from an express confidentiality agreement or a common law fiduciary duty.

(4)…a claim for conversion cannot be found where the owner has not been deprived of title or Continue reading “State Farm singing second verse same as the first, a little bit louder and a little bit worse in documents filed yesterday”