Category: Mills v State Farm

Hot Spot – McMurphy v State Farm

When Hurricane Katrina made landfall on the 29th of August, 2005, construction was almost mcintosh - mcmurpheycomplete on the new home of Lori and Ambrose McMurphy insured by State Farm.  The$1.3 million dollar three-story home and $650,000 in contents were lost to the storm and the property later lost to forclosure.

Their story is an all too familiar story of loss incurred from State Farm’s claim handling of property loss from the story – Katrina’s double whammy.

Although repeated time and again from one end of the coast to the other, in one area of Biloxi Katrina’s double whammy hit neighbor after neighbor – McIntosh, Mills, Bossier, McMurphy and untold others. Continue reading “Hot Spot – McMurphy v State Farm”

Rigsby qui tam – what’s hot, what’s not, what’s up?

Judge Senter’s Opinion covered a lot of ground and left only one issue outstanding:

The next four State Farm motions seek the exclusion of the Relators’ four expert witnesses: Patrick J. Fitzpatrick, Ph.D. [294]; Keith G. Blackwell, Ph.D. [296]; R. Ralph Sinno, Ph.D. [298]; and David J. Favre [300]. I will address the motions [294] [296] [298] [300] challenging the qualifications of the Relators’ expert witnesses in a separate opinion.

SLABBED has given these four motions little more than passing mention although we’ve covered State Farm’s backdoor approach attacking the credibility of these same witnesses in other cases.

Frankly, State Farm’s use of “demonstrative evidence” at the hearing made their motions “moo” to me (as in “bull$%&t”) and, instead, SLABBED posted State Farm plays video game at Rigsby qui tam hearing after noticing items on State Farm’s evidence list were contrary to an earlier Order that read in part:

Defendant will not be allowed to introduce “demonstrative evidence” under the guise of calling it a “supplement,” especially when it appears that the sole purpose for offering the “supplement” is not to fulfill a duty under the Federal or Local rules, but to avoid the Court’s prior ruling on a similar issue. Furthermore, placing the burden on Plaintiff at this late date to counter this material is unduly prejudicial.

That same thinking should apply to State Farm’s effort to disqualify experts who have testified in countless other cases.  However, in pulling the post to add the link to this one, I noticed something interesting related to what’s hot in Judge Senter’s Order

so I may know the outer limits of the potential claims involved in this
action, I will require State Farm to submit, in camera, a list containing the name of the insured, the address of the property, and the amount of flood insurance paid, for all SFIP claims that meet the following criteria…

We’ll get to the criteria after looking at these maps: Continue reading “Rigsby qui tam – what’s hot, what’s not, what’s up?”

unsettling – McIntosh neighbor’s case Mills v State Farm

The Mills residence is located on the west side of North Biloxi (north of the Back Bay)….immediately north of Big Lake and south of the Tchoutacabouffa River.

Mills with McIntosh
If the location sounds familiar to you, it should.  The Mills live down the street from the McIntoshes, according to MapQuest.

Estimated Time: 0.90 minutes
Estimated Distance: 0.31 miles

Don’t you think it’s time we met the neighbors?

Mr. Mills remained in his house during most of Katrina. He stated that about 0945 CDT severe wind (which he described as a ”tornado”) blew out the southeast wall including a wall-mounted AC unit in the converted garage. When storm surge reached the house about 1230 CDT he evacuated to a neighbor’s house. Continue reading “unsettling – McIntosh neighbor’s case Mills v State Farm”