Declarations

Can’t Prove Fraud

“Judge Senter has confirmed what we have been saying all along – this is a basic wind/water dispute and plaintiffs cannot prove fraud.”

—State Farm spokesman Jonathan Freed said April 21 after a federal judge dismissed claims of fraud in a key Hurricane Katrina lawsuit that accused State Farm Fire & Casualty Co. of using different engineering reports to deny a Mississippi couple’s insurance policy after the storm.

Tobacco Windfall

“It just seems wrong. It’s getting way off track. It’s not supposed to be opening up the floodgates.”

—Gregg Duyser, a 55-year-old Florida man suffering from emphysema and other ailments, commenting on a $600 million settlement to be divided among thousands of Floridians. He said he was initially told he might get as much as $28 million. Now, it’ll be only a fraction of that, he said.

Clerical Snafu

“The bottom line is somebody made an error. It is what it is.”

—Steve Parton, legal counsel for the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation after discovering that the 1st District Court of Appeals withdrew an order denying Allstate’s appeal of a state-ordered suspension due to a clerical error. The original order would have stopped Allstate’s agents from writing new business in Florida, but would not have affected existing policies.

Request Denied

“Having seen the damages first-hand, I am obviously very disappointed by FEMA’s decision to deny my request for a disaster declaration, and will file an immediate appeal.”

—Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour after hearing on April 18 that a federal disaster declaration would not be forthcoming for Jackson and Hinds Counties in the wake of destructive tornadoes that struck the state’s capitol and Hinds County on April 4.

Please Don’t Litter

“These sandbags littered our beaches and creeks from Georgia to the North Carolina line. The minimum fine for littering in South Carolina is $200. Yet these condo owners, who were repeatedly warned and ordered to remove these sandbags, are fined just 18 cents per bag. Something is very wrong with this picture.”

—South Carolina Coastal Conservation League spokeswoman Nancy Vinson, commenting on thousands of sandbags that ended up littering the state’s coast and marshes after storms last spring. The South Carolina Ocean and Coastal Resource Management Agency initially told property owners in June 2007 they could be fined $1,000 a day when the small sandbags used to reduce erosion got washed away in storms and were strewn along the entire South Carolina coast. Property owners countered that they were told by the agency to use the small sandbags.