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Wind stays in ‘wind vs. water case,’ judge says

A Mississippi judge refused to throw out an engineer’s testimony that Hurricane Katrina’s winds caused much of the damage to the home of a Mississippi couple suing Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co. for denying most of the couple’s claim, the Associated Press reported. The case is one of the first Hurricane Katrina-related “wind vs. water” cases to go to trial.

Nationwide attorney Dan Attridge argued that structural engineer Peter de la Mora, one of several expert witnesses for the plaintiffs, didn’t use “reliable principles and methods” in assessing damage to the Pascagoula home of Paul and Julie Leonard.

U.S. District Judge L.T. Senter Jr., who is hearing the case without a jury, rejected the motion to throw out de la Mora’s testimony, although the judge said, “Grant-ed, it’s a bit confusing as to what expertise he used.”

Hundreds of lawsuits have been filed by Gulf Coast homeowners challenging insurance companies over the wind-versus-water issue.

Plaintiffs’ attorneys hope a ruling in the Leonards’ favor would pressure insurers to pay out hundreds of millions of dollars in settlements to people whose claims have been rejected.

Nationwide, which paid the Leonards about $1,600, concluded that nearly all the damage to the couple’s home was from “storm surge,” wind-driven water from the Mississippi Sound, and wasn’t covered by their homeowner’s policy.

Zach Scruggs, one of the Leonards’ attorneys, said testimony from de la Mora and another witness for the plaintiffs, insurance adjuster Brian Persson, shows that wind was responsible for roughly half of the $130,000 in damage to the house.

Attridge questioned de la Mora’s qualifications and credibility, noting that this is the first time he has testified in a case involving hurricane damage. De la Mora also has twice been reprimanded by the Texas Board of Professional Engineers for not following “generally accepted engineering practices,” Attridge said.

De la Mora conceded during cross-examination that he changed his original report on the Leonards’ home, removing dozens of entries for damage that he initially attributed to Katrina’s wind. Persson, an insurance adjuster who has worked for Allstate Insurance Co., estimated that $47,365 of the $130,253 in structural damage to the Leonards’ home was the result of wind.

In other developments, the agent at center of the case, Jay Fletcher, denied telling the Leonards that they didn’t need flood insurance years ago, though that is what the plaintiffs contend.