today

Allstate, others not liable in levee breaks

Plaintiffs had contended that the water damage was the result of negligent design, construction and maintenance of the levees and that the policies' flood exclusions are therefore ambiguous because they don't exclude coverage for water caused by negligence. Because the policies are ambiguous, the plaintiffs argued, their losses should be covered. But the appeals court said "Even if the plaintiffs can prove that the levees were negligently designed, constructed or maintained and that the breaches were due to this negligence, the flood exclusions in the plaintiffs' policies unambiguously preclude their recovery."

IMO: This sounds pretty strange, as the damage was seemingly not caused by an excluded "Act of God" but by incompetence of engineers and the like. It seems like saying that garages bear no responsibility for, say, checking the brakes on a car. It looks like kowtowing to big business's incompetence and saying big business can be as incompetent as it likes, and that its incompetence can't be covered by insurance.