## Facts

- Homeowners Gordon and Tanjha Case and Shirley and Robert Chamberlain alleged their New Orleans-area homes were damaged by flooding after Hurricane Katrina-related levee overtopping and breaches.
- Their homeowners insurers, ANPAC Louisiana Insurance Company and Louisiana Farm Bureau Mutual Insurance Company, denied or limited payment by relying on policy flood exclusions.
- Plaintiffs sued the insurers in Louisiana state court asserting state-law coverage and related claims.
- Defendants removed to federal court, invoking the Multiparty, Multiforum Trial Jurisdiction Act of 2002 (MMTJA), relying on 28 U.S.C. §§ 1369 and 1441(e).
- Plaintiffs moved to remand for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction.

## Issues

1. Whether the Katrina flooding and levee failures constituted a qualifying “single accident” at a “discrete location” within 28 U.S.C. § 1369.
2. Whether an insurance coverage dispute over flood exclusions “arise[s] from” a § 1369 accident, including the requirement that at least 75 natural persons died “in the accident.”
3. If § 1369 jurisdiction was absent, whether removal under 28 U.S.C. § 1441(e) was improper, requiring remand.

## Decision

- The court granted the motion to remand.
- The court held § 1369 did not confer original federal jurisdiction because the Katrina events involved multiple failures across different locations and did not constitute a single accident at a discrete location.
- The court further held the homeowners’ insurance contract dispute did not “arise from” the type of mass-accident event contemplated by § 1369.
- Because § 1369 jurisdiction was lacking, removal under § 1441(e) was unauthorized and the case had to be remanded to state court.

## Legal Principles

- MMTJA jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1369 is limited to civil actions “arising from a single accident” with at least 75 deaths “at a discrete location,” plus specified minimal diversity and related requirements.
- A widespread natural disaster producing geographically dispersed damage and multiple causative events is not necessarily a “single accident” at a “discrete location” for § 1369.
- Insurance coverage and claim-handling disputes governed by state contract law generally do not “arise from” the sort of post-accident multiparty tort litigation targeted by § 1369.
- When § 1369 does not apply, removal under 28 U.S.C. § 1441(e) is improper and remand is required.

## Conclusion

The court ruled that MMTJA’s specialized mass-accident jurisdiction did not extend to Katrina-related homeowners insurance coverage litigation based on flood exclusions, so the insurers’ removal failed and the case was remanded to Louisiana state court.


Case v. ANPAC La. Ins. Co. (In re Katrina Canal Breaches Consol. Litig.), 466 F. Supp. 2d 781 (E.D. La. 2006)