Ullah, Inc. v. Lafayette Insurance Co.

54 So. 3d 1193, 2009 La.App. 4 Cir. 1566, 2010 La. App. LEXIS 1760, 2010 WL 5143621
CourtLouisiana Court of Appeal
DecidedDecember 17, 2010
DocketNo. 2009-CA-1566
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 54 So. 3d 1193 (Ullah, Inc. v. Lafayette Insurance Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Louisiana Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Ullah, Inc. v. Lafayette Insurance Co., 54 So. 3d 1193, 2009 La.App. 4 Cir. 1566, 2010 La. App. LEXIS 1760, 2010 WL 5143621 (La. Ct. App. 2010).

Opinions

PAUL A. BONIN, Judge.

| Lafayette Insurance Company unconditionally tendered $40,000 to its insured, Ullah, Inc., for its looting loss following Hurricane Katrina. The jury ultimately decided that Ullah’s looting loss was $450,000 and judgment was rendered on the jury’s verdict.1 On appeal, Lafayette, conceding that there is no legal error which interdicts the jury’s factual finding, argues for a number of reasons that the jury’s assessment of the loss is clearly wrong and unreasonable. After full review of the record, we disagree with Lafayette and conclude that the jury’s finding of the amount of the looting loss is not clearly wrong and is reasonable.

Ullah, for its part, answered the appeal and seeks statutory penalties and attorney’s fees, which the trial judge refused to award. Ullah contends that the jury specially found in response to an interrogatory that the amount of the unconditional Render was not reasonable. But because on this issue we find that the jury interrogatories and the jury’s answers are ambiguous and confusing, we conclude that its finding regarding the reasonableness of the amount of the unconditional tender is interdicted by legal error and, as a consequence, we review the issue of statutory penalties and attorney’s fees in this case de novo. After our de novo review, we conclude that Lafayette did not act arbitrarily or capriciously in not unconditionally tendering any amount in excess of $40,000.

We affirm the judgment and more thoroughly explain the basis for our decision below.

I

In this Part, we describe the value of Ullah’s property at issue, and we also consider Ullah’s flood and looting losses, for which it was insured by separate insurance providers.

[1196]*1196A

At the time of the storm, Ullah was operating a retail store under the name “A.K. Food Store” on Judge Perez Drive in Chalmette. The total value of the store’s inventory was approximately $1,261,550. In addition to gas and regular convenience store items, the A.K. Food Store sold silver jewelry, fishing equipment, and cigarettes and cigars both foreign and domestic. A diagram of the store shows the actual building measured eighty-four feet across and 53 feet in depth and was divided into the following areas: the main store, counter, office, electrical and supplies, bath, mechanical and storage, cooler, and cigarette storage. The store was equipped with a security system, phone system, display cases, shelving, several cash registers, two computers, a fax machine, copier, printer, office supplies, an ATM machine, ice cream machine, two ice machines, several coolers, a freezer, coffee and drink machines, jewelry cases, and a humidor.

| sUllah’s financial statements and tax records for the years 2003, 2004, and 2005 indicate that Ullah maintained and inventory valued between $900,000 and $1.2 million at the store during those years. Also in evidence is a copy of correspondence from Frank L. Silva, Jr., president of Frank Silva & Sons, Inc., one of Ullah’s three wholesale cigarette suppliers, who attested that Ullah purchased five to six thousand cartons of cigarettes per week.2

Due to the extra space, Ullah used the Chalmette A.K. Food Store location to warehouse the tobacco products that it sold in stores at other locations. According to Wajid Khan, cigarettes were stored in the cigarette storage area, as well as in the mechanical & storage, electrical & supplies, and office areas of the store. He testified that Ahmedullah Khan had extra, eight-foot tall shelves built in the office area to store the premium cigarettes. Karen Carreras, Ullah’s bookkeeper, corroborated Wajid Khan’s testimony that this store warehoused the tobacco products that Ullah sold at its other locations. According to Ms. Carreras, Ullah’s Chal-mette store averaged approximately $500,000 in sales each month and tobacco products were its biggest seller.

B

The store was flooded and a considerable portion of its inventory was destroyed by the floodwaters, which reached about four feet. Ullah was insured by Fidelity National Property and Casualty Insurance Company through the National Flood Insurance Program with limits of $500,000. Ullah filed its flood claim with Fidelity in late September of 2005. In connection with the flood claim, Ullah submitted to Fidelity a list of A.K. Food Store’s contents and inventory and their |4estimated value as of the date of the storm. Ahme-dullah Khan and his brother Wajid put this list together from memory over the course of several days,' but they did not keep a copy of the list. The total value of the listed items was $1,261,550. Ahmedullah Khan testified at trial that the $1,261,550 total was a good faith estimate of the value of the store’s inventory at the time of the storm. After an independent adjuster inspected the premises in October of 2005 and determined that the store sustained flood losses far exceeding the policy limits, Fidelity paid Ullah the $500,000 policy limits to settle the flood claim.

[1197]*1197Ullah was separately insured by Lafayette for wind damage and for looting losses. Though Lafayette sent a wind damage adjuster to the store, it was determined that the damage did not exceed the deductible. After Ullah received payment of the limits of its flood policy proceeds, it contacted Lafayette to adjust its claim for looting. Lafayette’s policy limit of coverage for looting losses on the contents of the building is $540,000.

Lafayette had assigned the wind damage claim to Property Loss Consulting, Inc. (PLC) for adjustment. Six people worked on the claim, including Jerrell Fleming and Chuck Street. Mr. Fleming, the initial adjuster, inspected the A.K. Food Store for wind damage on October 15, 2005, and informed Lafayette that the store sustained losses both from flood and looting. Mr. Fleming had noted in his initial report that the front windows and a glass door were broken and that the flood water rose to 3.9 feet inside the store. He also submitted to Lafayette an itemized list of the estimated looted contents, which totaled $395,000. Mr. Fleming’s report recommended that Lafayette reserve $400,000 to cover the looting loss. This information was available to Lafayette before Ullah submitted its looting loss claim to Lafayette.

|fiIn January of 2006, Ullah notified Lafayette that it wanted to initiate a claim for the property looted from A.K. Food Store. Lafayette informed Ullah that it first must submit a copy of a police report from the St. Bernard Sheriffs Office documenting the dates of theft, the property taken, and a detailed list of the stolen items, their replacement value, and proof of ownership.

On January 9, 2006, Ahmedullah Khan, in order to comply with Lafayette’s requirement, filed a looting complaint with the St. Bernard Sheriffs Office. The resulting sheriffs report’s narrative states, in pertinent part:

Mr. Khan stated that he left his store secured on August 28, 2005, the day before Hurricane Katrina and when he returned he found that the doors and windows to his store were smashed and a lot of his merchandise was looted. Mr. Khan stated some of his merchandise was damage (sic) by water, but the majority is unaccounted for. Mr. Khan stated he had merchandise stock well above the water line which is gone. Mr. Khan stated that the non perishable items are gone, fishing equipment, knives, Zippo lighters, gift items, jewl-ery (sic), watches and phone cards are unaccounted for.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
54 So. 3d 1193, 2009 La.App. 4 Cir. 1566, 2010 La. App. LEXIS 1760, 2010 WL 5143621, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/ullah-inc-v-lafayette-insurance-co-lactapp-2010.