Early in the month I began a somewhat regular “sweep” of Katrina insurance cases in the federal court with new docket entries. In a single day recently, docket entries were made on approximately 75 different cases. It would be impossible to estimate exactly how many different cases had one or more docket entry during the month of February; but, I’m willing to guess hundreds.
Obviously, someone has to read every one of those new documents. I’m not the one. In this short and busy month, it has been difficult at times to “sweep” my kitchen, much less the case files – so much so, in fact, this could be called a “lick and a promise” post about cases that caught my eye.
Nationwide, you may recall, is the carrier that prompted Judge Senter’s memorable “illusionary coverage” remark. At this point, it appears the “illusion” morphed into a “delusion” with Nationwide thinking he would eventually see things their way. While he has been “on their side” at times, I’ve seen Judge Senter issue an order in several Nationwide cases that I don’t recall seeing elsewhere. Consequently, I’ve also seen another first, Notice of Private Mediation:
Pursuant to the Court’s January 12, 2009 Order for Mediation, counsel for Defendants Nationwide Mutual Fire Insurance Company, Ntionwide Mutual Insurance Company, and Nationwide Property and Casualty Insurance Company, on behalf of both parties, hereby advises the Court that the parties will hold a private mediation on or before March 19, 2009, in lieu of participating in the Court-supervised mediation program.
Since I don’t want to commit the logical fallacy of suggesting correlation proves causation, I will simply point out I noted a number of Nationwide cases were settled this week.
However, other Nationwide cases I pulled do not appear to be moving in that direction. Politz v Nationwide , for example, is a dispute about the plaintiff’s private coverage with Nationwide – although you might think otherwise. Nationwide focused on NFIP and other disaster assistance the Politz received and did so in a way that its conduct appears contrary to the NFIP Litigation Philosophy: Continue reading “Katrina insurance litigation – selected Nationwide and State Farm cases”