Initial impressions on Fifth Circuit's decision in In Re Katrina Canal Breaches Litigation

The Fifth Circuit got it right. Here's a pdf of the decision.District Court Judge Stanwood Duval's underlying decision had said that flood exclusions in many of the policies involved in this litigation were ambiguous because they didn't specifically define floods to include water spilling out from a canal breach, due to defective construction and human error. Judge Duval, in an 85-page opinion that stretches the bounds of patience and the human attention span, implied that "overtopping" of the canals would be excluded, but that a breach in a levee -- under the language of the standard ISO and most other insurance policies -- is not specifically excluded. As most reading this will know, when a term or provision of an insurance policy is ambiguous, the interpretation is d