Category: SLABBED Daily

SLABBED Daily – August 23 (Citations of significant interest)

SLABBED reviews of a brief filed in Katrina litigation are written to tell the story of the disputed claim as it makes it way through the litigation process.  Although the full brief is always linked to the post, citations are often omitted in the story as they interrupt the flow and add to the length.

However, in today’s SLABBED Daily, citations are the story and we have Chip Merlin to thank for posting the information on his Property Insurance Coverage Law Blog:  Flood Insurance Waivers Concerning Proof of Loss are Subject to Judicial Review: A Recent Flood Case that Makes Sense and  If Insurers Fail to Timely Pay Actual Cash Value Benefits, Policyholders Should Demand Full Replacement Cost Benefits Even if Replacement Has Not Occurred.

Slabbed recently posted We will not now allow defendant to raise as a defense plaintiff’s failure to perform an act which defendant itself greatly hindered plaintiff from performing…,a portion of another recent Merlin post that pointed out:

…courts have found a duty on the insurer to reimburse the insured before rebuilding takes place when…the insured does not have the means to rebuild the facility without insurance proceeds.(emphasis added)

The SLABBED version of his post encouraged readers to use the cases Merlin identified if they had related litigation.

Although Chip is a busy attorney who somehow finds time to write for his firm’s blog, he is also  a reader of SLABBED who took note of what was written and responded with additional citations: Continue reading “SLABBED Daily – August 23 (Citations of significant interest)”

Slabbed Daily August 3: The Sun Herald runs a Hancock County Edition

Farrar Lane
Sarah Cure / The Sun Herald

And manages to hit close to home on several of the stories all of which were written by Sarah Cure. We start with signs; in this case street signs and how the locals have made due in the years since Katrina without any:

Homemade and temporary street signs attached to utility poles on the roads of Waveland will soon be replaced with the new standard of signs from the Mississippi Department of Transportation.

Waveland Recovery Manager Brent Anderson said the new street signs are being produced, and he hopes to start installing the signs toward the end of August………

After Hurricane Katrina, many neighborhoods created their own street signs or markers. They were made from storm debris, pieces of concrete slabs, cardboard and plywood. People even spray-painted street names directly on the actual roads.

Liz Fergusson and her godfather used Foamcore to designate their street in Waveland.

“We were tired of not having street signs because it was difficult for people to find your house,” Fergusson said. “If the floor man was coming to your home, you would have to tell him to turn left by the house with a blue tarp on its roof. Continue reading “Slabbed Daily August 3: The Sun Herald runs a Hancock County Edition”

Slabbed Daily Weekend Edition: Who else is reading “the untouchables”????

Mel flattered us with the comment he made last night with us. We hope to live up to the standards of the legend.

We are blessed with a diverse readership and our willingness to host pretty much all viewpoints from people from all walks of life makes us an interesting laboratory for those whose interests are scientifically motivated so it should come as no surprise we were linked in a recent psychology today article. For my part I think we are all “insane” in one way shape or fashion, as my good friend Russell pointed out via an article he sent me dating to the late the 1980’s which addresses what he termed delusional reality (Sorry I do not have the link handy).

Those that do not sleepwalk through life understand this concept and accept the fact Continue reading “Slabbed Daily Weekend Edition: Who else is reading “the untouchables”????”

Slabbed Daily July 29, 2009: “Explosive developments in the Louisiana Senate Race?”

Stormy Daniels campaign manager’s car is blown up! The perp was also caught on tape. Senator Vitter would you happen to know anything about this?

Our good friend Jim Brown is all over it and his blog entry has the embedded news report from channel 26.

sop

Slabbed Daily July 22-24. Lets tie a few things together

ying-yangThere have been a good number of news tidbits that do not necessarily constitute a post here on Slabbed on their own but when taken together tie up several loose ends and lend context to a story that does merit it’s own post in Mike Chaney’s recent insurance forum held last Thursday and Friday here on the coast.  So let’s backtrack a week and shake us up slabbed insurance cocktail by beginning with Anita Lee’s coverage of day 2:

Gov. Haley Barbour joined the coastal insurance debate Friday, telling an audience he believes regional compacts would be the best way to regulate wind coverage in coastal zones from Texas to Maine.

Barbour introduced The Travelers Insurance Cos. president, Brian MacLean, to explain the company’s proposal for improving the coast insurance market. Insurers have pulled back from coastlines in recent years, leaving state-run wind pools to fill the void.

Wind pools were intended as insurers of last resort, but their market shares have grown to levels that experts agree are unsustainable. Insurance works by spreading risk, not concentrating it.

Haley has been conspicuously absent from the insurance scene refusing to comment on the litigation while offering cheap lip service to Gene Taylor’s multi peril bill. I suspect he and the State GOP has been searching for a way to throw a bone to the people on the coast that helped elect him while working hard to preserve GOP big business bonafides with the campaign money machine that is big insurance. Continue reading “Slabbed Daily July 22-24. Lets tie a few things together”

SLABBED Daily – July 18-19 weekend edition with judges on my mind

The road leads back
It always leads back to you

Judges, not Georgia, have been on my mind. In fact, I’m Keeping Score – but you know that if  you read Who has the balls and Who’s calling the game.  Sop reported a different score and attracted  comment from Chip Merlin.

As an attorney in the trenches with human clients, I have to somehow communicate what the reasons for rulings may be…God help us if…the only…logical reason is that the judge was appointed by a politician with a result oriented bias which has to be followed rather than fair logic and justice.

Reader NRB agreed with Chip and added:

Over the past four years I have had to explain rulings to clients that I not only disagree with, but cannot for the life of me figure out how the judge(s) arrived at their conclusions.  Decisions completely void of any analysis of La. law that were basically made up out of “whole cloth.”

God help us, Chip,the Sun Herald has the story:

King said he agreed to be a Republican when Republican Gov. Fob James appointed him to a vacant judgeship in Bessemer in 1997. He said he came from a long line of Democrats and finally decided to make the switch because his philosophy was more in keeping with the Democratic Party.

“I like everyone to come into court on equal footing and have a fair chance,” King said.

“Sometimes I felt like there was a business pressure when I was a Republican.”

A case I’ve been following in Louisiana reveals another possible reason for otherwise inexplicable orders and opinions – dumb lawyers.  Two legal eagles there screwed their clients, their colleagues and Lady Justice by settling a case when the judge was ruling in their favor – and made themselves the laughing stock of Katrina litigation in the process.

The road leads back but no one will be there.

Slabbed Daily July 15: Dead Fish Edition

What a better way to remind the public about Mr Chaney’s upcoming insurance forum than to feature a warmup article about the massive pogey spill in the Mississippi sound and its accompanying pool of floating dead fish. Al Jones at the Sun Herald has the story:

Nearly half a million dead pogies were adrift Tuesday off Long Beach and Pass Christian.

An accident involving two Omega Protein pogy boats, based out of Pascagoula, resulted in a spill that sent an estimated 200,000 dead pogies, or menhaden, per boat into the water.

“Accidents do happen,’’ said Walter “Tiny” Chataginer, chief of law enforcement for the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources. “We are not sure what happened and how they got dumped.’’

Next up we’ll circle back to JR Welsh’s story in the Sun Herald from last month on the restoration of Buccaneer State Park in Waveland. I saw the C-L picked it up for today’s edition as they are manpower poor and no doubt very hungry for content. These are very challenging economic times for poorly run newspaper chains such as the C-L’s corporate parent Gannett but that is another post:

One of the Coast’s most beloved but hurricane-battered attractions is getting a $17 million overhaul and may be partially rebuilt by late fall, but won’t be back to full steam until at least 2010. Continue reading “Slabbed Daily July 15: Dead Fish Edition”

SLABBED Daily and stuck like a dope with a thing called hope – July 14

I could say life is just a bowl of Jello
And appear more intelligent and smart,
But I’m stuck like a dope
With a thing called hope,
And I can’t get it out of my heart!

Sure, I’m a cockeyed optimist because, after all, there’s no place called Fingers Crossed, Arkansas; and, then, because there is this to consider:

When you say a situation or a person is hopeless, you are slamming the door in the face of God.

Not only is it poor manners to slam a door, much less slam a door  in anyone’s face, you just don’t ever slam doors in God’s face – although:

I hear the human race
Is fallin’ on its face
And hasn’t very far to go…

It is with the door of SLABBED open that I’m stuck like a dope with a thing called hope that those in positions of power and responsibility – Chaney, those who serve on the Southern District Court, our Supremes, and the Fifth; Secretary Napolitano, the President, Members of Congress, the media and all others – will conduct a full inquiry of all Katrina insurance-related issues and offer balanced decisions.

Sop nailed the current problem in a comment he made of the Allstate Finance Board this morning:

I’ve come to believe the problem isn’t that Northbrook Il has a great number of people of questionable moral character, rather it is human beings being……well human.

On behalf of the SLABBED and with hope that human beings being……well human will show the better side of human, I offer this Irish Blessing:

May those who love us, love us
And those who don’t love us, May God turn their hearts.
And if he doesn’t turn their hearts,
May he turn their ankles
So we will know them by their limping!

Amen!
Nowdy