After 14 months of waiting, this morning I received an order from the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania denying allocator to the defendant insurance company's petition seeking reversal of the Superior Court's decision I argued and won, which reversed the trial court's decision dismissing the claim at summary judgment. Thus, ends a legal odyssey that began September 17, 2004, when the remnants of Hurricane Katrina hit western Pennsylvania. In a small run down town, called Millvale, the water cascaded down the hills into the valley where the town is located and caused the municipal sewage system to, literally, explode up into basements of homes and businesses. BUT, since the water kept falling from the sky, the local creek flooded and essentially wiped out the town.   

This is the same Hurricane Katrina that wiped out the gulf coast. You may have read in the news how thousands of insurance claims were denied in the gulf coast because even though there was wind damage to the properties, there was also flood damage. The courts upheld the denials on the basis that the policies contained "concurrent cause" provisions. (If one source of loss is covered and one is not, and they occur concurrently - no coverage has to be provided if one is excluded). In the gulf coast cases, the flooding cause of loss was excluded and the insurers won those cases. 

 

The insurer pointed to all of the decisions from other states, particularly in the gulf coast, where the courts routinely supported the denial of the claims caused by Hurricane Katrina.