Okay, this is what pisses me off about this so called 'justice' system. If you don’t like the ruling on your case you can shop around until you find a judge that will side with you.
Why is it that one judge can say things like 'the facts are clear, I rule in your favor' and another judge will say 'the facts are clear, I rule against you'? Just 'how clear' are these 'facts'?
In the latest example of a justice system that is patently ambiguous and therefore unfair, a federal appeals court in New Orleans ruled in favor of the group of insurance companies that victims of Hurricane Katrina have been fighting to pay for flood damages.
This was after another judge in U.S. District court ruled last November that insurance companies have to pay out to their policy holders who are trying to recover damages caused by these very same flood waters.
What the hell is going on?
No ‘facts’ were changed in this case from the time of the first ruling to the time of the second ruling, except the judges.
U.S. District Judge Stanwood Duval Jr. looked at these insurance policies and sided with policyholders arguing that the language excluding water damage was ambiguous. Of course it is, that is how insurance companies write them. He said that the policies did not distinguish between floods caused by an act of God, such as excessive rainfall, and floods caused by an act of man, which would include the levee breaches.
U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals judge, Carolyn King, writing for the panel of three judges, said this event was excluded from coverage under the policies and that the terms of the policies were ‘unambiguous’.
So why is it that one judge would call this wording ambiguous and another would call the same wording unambiguous?
I think there is some sort of conspiracy taking place here. These insurance companies, through their paid lobbyists, are ‘stacking the deck’ against their policyholders to ensure favorable future rulings.
When this case first hit the news that these victims were fighting their insurance companies to get them to pay for damages to their homes, damage that was caused through no fault of their own, the nation was pulling for the victims. Mainly because many of them have suffered from an insurance company that ‘interpreted’ their policy differently than how the homeowner did.
Insurance companies are notorious for writing their policies in such a way as to allow them to ‘legally’ weasel out of paying for damages when the policy holders (their loyal customers) need them the most.
Are these policies written in such a way that homeowners don’t really know what they are paying for? Yes.
Is this some kind of diversionary tactic adopted by the insurance companies so that they can maximize their income (because people are forced to buy insurance on their homes) and then minimize their payout under some vague interpretation of the policy that supposedly ‘clearly’ sides with them? Yes! They are in the business of turning a profit. But to do so through the worst possible times in these people lives is morally wrong.
These people thought they were paying for insurance that would ‘protect’ them. The insurance companies clearly are not protecting them in anyway except to ensure their premiums are paid on time so the policy does not lapse. This is the only ‘protection’ you can get from an insurance company.
Recently, credit card companies were brought to task, by congress, to rewrite their credit card agreement terms in clear, unambiguous language so that card holders could easily understand them. Insurance companies need to follow suit.
There have been enough examples of the damages that nature and man can cause that the insurance companies know what is in the ‘realm of possibility’. Therefore it is, by no stretch of the imagination, possible to write these policies so that every possibility can be clearly spelled out as to coverage.
I call on the insurance commission of every state to actually ‘protect’ their consumers by forcing these insurance companies to change their ‘sleight of hand’ manipulations of the wording of their policies.
Also, this justice system of ours needs to back its own members and fellow judges and stop telling the nation that some other judge does not know what he or she is talking about. You are not serving any form of justice to victims by getting their hopes up and then dashing them because of your ‘alternating’ rulings.
People need to have faith in the justice system. Ambiguous rulings such as we have witnessed in this case are far too wide spread for the everyday citizen, who does not have the resources of a corporation with its high paid lawyers, to believe their case will ever get a fair ruling.
Just as in the case of insurance claim possibilities, we have by now seen every situation in which claims can be filed. Based on this knowledge, guidelines can, and should, be set up so that rulings can be more fairly passed down and justice can be more equitably meted out.
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