A couple Fifth Circuit Katrina cases from earlier this week

You might have seen that, besides the decision in the big In Re Katrina Canal Breaches Litigation last week, the Fifth Circuit decided a couple other Katrina cases on Monday.This one, Arias-Benn v. State Farm, is pretty dull fare, but contains an interesting point on loss causation analysis. The issue -- whether a homeowners policy covers damage to refrigerators when their contents rotted during extended power outages due to Hurricane Katrina. The important distinction for this case is that the policy covers the spoiled food itself, but not the refrigerator, unless the power outage was caused by some condition unique to the residence premises, such as a falling tree, while power lines remained energized elsewhere. Because the power outage was general, damage to the refrigerators themsel