## Facts

- Norman and Genevieve Broussard’s home in Biloxi, Mississippi was completely destroyed during Hurricane Katrina, leaving only the foundation slab.
- The Broussards had a State Farm homeowner’s policy but did not have flood insurance.
- The policy provided (1) named-peril personal property coverage, including windstorm, and (2) open-peril dwelling coverage for accidental direct loss.
- Both coverages contained a water-damage exclusion and an anti-concurrent cause clause excluding losses that would not have occurred absent an excluded event, regardless of concurrent or sequential causes.
- A State Farm adjuster concluded the home appeared more damaged by flood than wind, and State Farm denied coverage.
- The parties did not dispute that the dwelling and personal property were total losses and that the values met or exceeded policy limits.

## Issues

1. Whether judgment as a matter of law (JMOL) for the insureds on dwelling and personal property coverage was proper given conflicting evidence of wind versus water causation and the policy’s anti-concurrent cause clause.
2. Whether the punitive-damages award could stand where coverage and causation depended on disputed facts.

## Decision

- The Fifth Circuit reversed the district court’s grant of JMOL for the Broussards on both dwelling and personal property coverage.
- The court vacated the punitive-damages award.
- The court remanded for a new trial because causation and application of exclusions presented triable fact questions.

## Legal Principles

- JMOL is improper if a reasonable jury could find for the non-movant when the evidence is viewed in that party’s favor.
- Under Mississippi insurance law, insureds generally must show a loss within coverage, while insurers generally bear the burden to prove an exclusion applies; however, contract language such as an anti-concurrent cause clause can affect how causation and exclusions operate in a mixed-peril loss.
- Where there is conflicting evidence about whether wind (covered) or water (excluded), or both in sequence or concurrently, caused the loss, causation is ordinarily a jury question.
- A stipulation that a hurricane is a “windstorm” does not by itself establish full coverage for all personal property loss when the policy also excludes water damage and contains an anti-concurrent cause clause.
- Punitive damages for insurer bad faith cannot rest on an assumed lack of a reasonable basis for denial when liability and the extent of coverage turn on genuinely disputed facts.

## Conclusion

The Fifth Circuit held that conflicting evidence about wind and flood causation, and the effect of the policy’s anti-concurrent cause clause, required submission of coverage questions to a jury; it therefore reversed JMOL for the insureds, vacated punitive damages, and ordered a new trial.


Broussard v. State Farm Fire & Cas. Co., 523 F.3d 618 (5th Cir. 2008)