Day: August 8, 2009

boogaloo shing-a-ling Judge Walker orders State Farm to dance with Boosier

In accordance with the Court’s order of June 5, 2009, the Court has reviewed in camera certain emails withheld from production by State Farm on grounds of privilege. The pages of emails are sequentially numbered BOSR00000001PRIV through BOSR00000048; BOSR00000010EM through BOSR00000035EM; and BOSR00000045EM through BOSR00000050EM.

I was working my way through a stack of briefs when Here Comes the Judge with an Order in Bossier v State Farm that gives State Farm’s privilege log the boogaloo shing-a-ling.

(all emphasis below added)

Judge I got a boy here who can’t dance.

The Court will first take the opportunity to advise counsel that any time documents claimed to be privileged are ordered produced for in camera inspection, the privilege log asserting the privilege claimed should accompany the documents delivered to the Court.

Can’t dance?  Ah

In the present case, searching through other documents filed with the Court yielded the pertinent privilege log attached as an exhibit to another pleading.

Ninety days...

The privilege claimed for all the documents reviewed by the Court is “anticipation of litigation.” … Documents prepared in the ordinary course of business are not protected as prepared in anticipation of litigation…

After careful examination of each page of the documents…

thirty days for boogaloo… Continue reading “boogaloo shing-a-ling Judge Walker orders State Farm to dance with Boosier”

Slabbed Proudly Presents the Cyber Premiere of the Winds of Katrina

I was honored a few weeks ago that the good folks at Bill Hudson and Associates sent us a complimentary copy of the Winds of Katrina, a presentation of the Coastal Weather Research Center of the University of South Alabama. After watching the 20 minute documentary I immediately inquired  if it was or could be embedded on YouTube as the scientific treatment of what made Katrina’s winds special (for lack of a better term) is simply excellent. Dr Bill Williams and Dr Keith Blackwell provide a Joe Friday like narration laying out what I had the misfortune of experiencing first hand; the destructive power of the violent winds that buffeted the Mississippi Coast for hours before the storm surge arrived.

Below the fold it is my pleasure to present the cyber premiere of this excellent documentary. Now for the curtain.

The Winds of Katrina Continue reading “Slabbed Proudly Presents the Cyber Premiere of the Winds of Katrina”

Let’s give them the Chaney (without vaseline): State Farm files for a 45% rate hike on the coast

I’ll have in depth analysis in another post. Let’s begin with Anita Lee and her front page story in today’s Sun Herald where Mike Chaney the tap dancing politician is long on rhetoric as he prepares coastal policyholders for the shaft:

The focus at State Farm headquarters in Bloomington, Ill., is on the bottom line, not consumers, Mississippi Insurance Commissioner Mike Chaney said after receiving the insurance company’s request for an average 45 percent rate increase on existing business on the Coast.

“The more I’m around these folks, the more I worry about them,” Chaney said Friday. “They don’t have a heart. The corporation as a body has no compassion for the consumer.”

Coast agents were notified of the rate increase request on Friday, when it was filed. The proposed increase would be 46.9 percent south of Interstate 10 and 43.5 percent on the north side. Continue reading “Let’s give them the Chaney (without vaseline): State Farm files for a 45% rate hike on the coast”