UNBELIEVABLE BUT TRUE

Two current court cases in the news would be considered unbelivable were it not for the fact that they are both true. One case concerns an insurance company's denial of a claim arising from the deaths of three fire victims. The other case concerns a law suit filed against the driver of a truck that was rear-ended in a deadly collision by a drunk driver, the daughter of a juvenile court judge.

The Great American Insurance Company of Cincinnati has petitioned a federal judge to absolve it of any liability for the deaths of three victims in a Houston office building fire. The company argued that the families of the victimes should not be granted any compensation because the deaths resulted from smoke inhalation and not from actual flames.

Great American is invoking a clause in the insurance policy which excludes any damage or injury caused by pollution, fumes and soot. The insurer insists that since it specified smoke to be a form of pollution in its policy, the three deaths fall under the policy's exclusionary provisions.

Let's make sure we get this straight. The three victims who were trapped in the burning office building did not die as a result of the fire. They were killed by pollution. UNBELIEVABLE!

Great American is not the first insurer to have invoked the pollution exclusion. In 2004, Allstate also denied any liability in the deaths of three children killed by smoke inhalation in a house fire, but the Connecticut Supreme Court ruled that the "pollution exclusion" did not apply and forced the insurer to pay the claim. And in 1997, the Kansas Supreme Court denied a claim by Northwestern Pacific Indemnity Company that smoke damage in a grovery store was excluded because it fell under the pollicy's pollution exclusion.

In the Connecticut and Kansas cases, the insurance policies did not specify smoke to be a form of pollution. In the Houston case it is possible that, since Great American specified smoke as a pollutant, the court will rule in favor of the insurer and deny the families of the three victims any compensation.

According to Houston Chronicle columnist Lisa Falkenberg, "the 'pollution exclusion' originated after oil spills in the 1970s. It was intended - surprise - to apply to real pollution and, for example, corporations whose actions led to scandalous pollution events."

"Where there's fire, there's smoke" a Houston Fire Department official told Falkenberg. There is a total lack of ethics and morals by Great American and its legal staff in insisting on a literal interpretation of the pollution exclusion clause. As Falkenberg states, "For the sake of every property insurance policyholder in Texas, let's hope it's an argument U.S. District Judge Lee Rosenthal doesn't hesitate to stamp out."

If you think the smoke exclusion is a stretch, you ain't seen nothing yet. Last year, Elizabeth Shelton the 21-year-old daughter of a Houston juvenile court judge, was convicted of intoxication manslaughter for a freeway accident that killed her boyfriend. According to two tests, Shelton had a blood alcohol concentration MORE THAN THREE TIMES the legal limit when she smashed the SUV she was driving into the back of a box truck around 2 a.m.

After her father, the judge, used every legal trick in the book to keep his daughter from paying for her crime, Shelton was sentenced to eight years of probation and ordered to serve four months in jail. In my opinion, SHE GOT OFF WAY TOO LIGHT!

During the trial, the defense relied on an "expert" witness who blamed the truck driver for the collision, claiming that Shelton struck the truck only after and because he made an unsafe lane change on the freeway. The prosecution's expert witness testified that there was no evidence that the truck driver was in any way to blame. (I have a very low opinion of expert witnesses. Refer to my blog of 7-30-06, "Judicial Whores ...............")

Now that he's failed to get her off, Judge Shelton has joined his daughter and her dead boyfriend's family in filing a lawsuit against the driver of the truck. The suit seeks $20,000 for the destruction of the Lexus SUV she was driving and an amount to be determined for mental anguish, pain and suffering.

Let's make sure we get this straight. Elizabeth Shelton's family and the family of the young man she killed are suing the truck driver and 15 other defendants - including insurance companies and banks - because she rear-ended his truck while driving rip-roaring drunk on a freeway around 2 a.m. UNBELIEVABLE!

As for the dead boyfriend's family, how did they come to be so misguided? It is Shelton and her father that they should be suing, not the poor truck driver. And Judge Shelton? He ought to be ashamed of himself - but then he's a lawyer and most of them have no shame.

I can understand a father wanting to help his daughter defend herself. But Shelton's father is a judge and judges are held to a higher standard than us ordinary souls. By suing the truck driver, Judge Shelton has lowered himself to the same depths as those sleezy lawyers representing the Great American Insurance Company. In my opinion, Judge Shelton is unfit to sit on the juvenile court bench and should be removed from office.