ICLAWBLOG – McIntosh case: fraud claim dismissed

McIntosh case: fraud claim dismissed

The McIntosh v. State Farm, easily the most contentious of the State Farm Katrina cases, has long been dark and bloody ground where lawyers clashed by night. This is the case where Kerri Rigsby herself approved the flood payment, then turned around and accused State Farm of overpaying flood damage with government money to minimize the company’s liability for wind.

It is also the case where those dumb engineer e-mails were so incessantly touted, it’s one of the cases with two engineer reports, it’s the case with the note in the file that “put in wind file, do not pay bill, do not discuss.” That last part deserves some comment: it was often erroneously rendered as “do not pay claim,” which the note did not say. Instead, it seems obvious that it is a reference to the bill of the engineering company for engineer Brian Ford’s first report, which strangely (considering Kerri Rigsby approved the flood payment) found no evidence of flood damage, and attributed all the damage to wind. But this schtick worked for quite a while — just look at this story from CBS from the salad days of the Ride of the Rigsbys — August 26, 2006: “Sisters Blew Whistle on Katrina Claims.” What a load of Scruggsism! But the media and a lot of other people just ate it up. Looks pretty silly now, doesn’t it? Maybe some editor should go back and revise the headline on the story to: “Sisters Met With Trailer Lawyers, Blew Up Careers.”

Insurance Coverage Blog
4/22/8