<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML><HEAD>
<META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<META content="MSHTML 6.00.2800.1515" name=GENERATOR>
<STYLE></STYLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY bgColor=#ffffff>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>And so it goes!</FONT></DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE
style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </DIV>
<DIV
style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; FONT: 10pt arial; font-color: black"><B>From:</B>
<A title=deco@moscow.com href="mailto:deco@moscow.com">Art Deco</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A title=vision2020@moscow.com
href="mailto:vision2020@moscow.com">Vision 2020</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Thursday, September 15, 2005 9:03
AM</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> [Vision2020] 09-15-05 LA Times:
Lawyers Planning a Deluge ofHurricane Damage Lawsuits</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4>
<DIV style="MARGIN-LEFT: 1em; MARGIN-RIGHT: 1em"><A
href="http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-katrinasuits15sep15,0,6603241.story?track=tothtml">http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-katrinasuits15sep15,0,6603241.story?track=tothtml</A><BR>
<H4>KATRINA'S AFTERMATH</H4>
<H1>Lawyers Planning a Deluge of Hurricane Damage Lawsuits</H1>By Joseph
Menn<BR>Times Staff Writer<BR><BR>September 15, 2005<BR><BR>After the flood
comes the flood of litigation.<BR><BR>Two weeks after Hurricane Katrina
battered the Gulf Coast, lawyers from the region are deciding whom to sue over
the catastrophe or rather, whom to sue first.<BR><BR>At least one suit was
filed in the last week, and plans were being sketched out for many more. The
targets include real estate agents, insurance companies and federal agencies.
The potential damages being sought range from a few thousand dollars to
billions of dollars.<BR><BR>"You're going to have substantial litigation,"
said Daniel Becnel Jr., a Louisiana attorney who spent last weekend
interviewing hydrologists and geologists and is working on multiple
suits.<BR><BR>Many suits will be fought by attorneys who have been displaced
from their offices by hurricane damage. They and other Louisiana lawyers will
be in big demand because theirs is the only U.S. state in which the legal
system is based on the Napoleonic Code rather than British common law. Some of
the U.S.' most successful plaintiffs' lawyers are based in the Gulf Coast
region.<BR><BR>Becnel, well known for suing tobacco and pharmaceutical
companies, is counting on million-dollar damage awards or settlements. Citing
statements by the Army Corps of Engineers, he claimed that a barge tore loose
from its moorings and caused the devastating levee breach on the Industrial
Canal in New Orleans. He plans to sue the barge's owner and its insurance
carriers. The potential beneficiaries of any award, he said, include "everyone
that got flooded in that area."<BR><BR>Suits are also expected against the
owners of facilities where the sick or elderly were allegedly abandoned.
Dozens of bodies were found inside Memorial Medical Center and at St. Rita's
Nursing Home in St. Bernard Parish.<BR><BR>The government generally enjoys
immunity against suits over actions taken as part of its regular functioning.
That bars damages when officials exercised normal discretion in their
decision-making, even if they blundered, said Georgetown University law
professor Joseph Page.<BR><BR>But New Orleans residents can take legal action
if the Army Corps of Engineers or other agencies failed to follow their own
guidelines, he said.<BR><BR>Becnel and others say they plan to claim that some
government agencies didn't meet their own standards.<BR><BR>Property owners
are expected to file a spate of suits against insurance firms that deny claims
by arguing, for example, that damage was caused not by high winds but by
flooding, which is not covered by many policies.<BR><BR>Richard Scruggs, a
Mississippi lawyer who helped many states reap multibillion-dollar awards from
tobacco firms in the 1990s, has the insurance industry in his cross hairs.
Scruggs lost his weekend home in Pascagoula, Miss., to Katrina.<BR><BR>Scruggs
said he planned to file thousands of suits in state courts. He said the effort
would be aided by a Mississippi statute known as the "valued policy law." In a
controversial decision last year, a Florida appeals court held that a similar
state law required full restitution when a house was partly destroyed by
hurricane winds, even though flooding did most of the damage.<BR><BR>"The
statute provides in these states that if there's any damage at all by wind,
they must pay the full amount," Scruggs said.<BR><BR>A spokesman for the
Property Casualty Insurers Assn. of America said insurers wouldn't pay for
uncovered flood damage and that adjusters were trained to determine when
flooding was the main culprit.<BR><BR>"Typically in floods, the water rises
from the bottom, and it leaves a mark on your wall just like a ring on your
bathtub," said spokesman Joseph Annotti. But he said he couldn't talk about
the valued policy law.<BR><BR>In an earlier comment to A.M. Best Co., which
rates the stability of insurance companies, insurer association Vice President
Don Griffin acknowledged that the Florida decision might be an issue in
Louisiana.<BR><BR>Scruggs predicted that if the insurance companies lost in
the courts, the industry would ask Congress for a comprehensive settlement
plan similar to the one enacted after the Sept. 11 attacks, which distributed
$7 billion to survivors of the 2,880 people killed and others who were
wounded. People who promised not to sue shared in the award.<BR><BR>Not all of
the litigation will be for such high stakes.<BR><BR>In Baton Rouge, La., C.J.
Brown Realtors handled a recent offer to sell a house to a plaintiffs' law
firm looking to shelter its New Orleans staff.<BR><BR>As demand for such
housing surged, the homeowner decided he wanted more money, according to the
law firm, E. Eric Guirard & Associates.<BR><BR>Guirard promptly sued the
would-be seller and C.J. Brown, accusing them of violating an anti-gouging
statute.<BR><BR>E. Eric Guirard, a personal injury lawyer known locally for
television commercials seeking new clients, this week began advertising for
other potential gouging victims.<BR><BR>C.J. Brown President Arthur Sterbcow,
displaced from New Orleans himself, said he couldn't control what price his
client asked for his property.<BR><BR>"They haven't suspended personal
property rights, as far as I know," Sterbcow grumbled. "This is where lawyers
pay for their law school." </DIV></FONT></DIV>
<P>
<HR>
<P></P>_____________________________________________________<BR> List
services made available by First Step Internet, <BR> serving the
communities of the Palouse since 1994.
<BR>
http://www.fsr.net
<BR>
mailto:Vision2020@moscow.com<BR>ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ<BR></BLOCKQUOTE></BODY></HTML>