Cascio v. State Farm Fire & Casualty Co.

Filing 14

ORDER & REASONS denying 12 Motion to Stay. Signed by Judge Martin L.C. Feldman on 3/28/2012. (caa, )

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
EASTERN DISTRICT OF LOUISIANA
CHRISTOPHER CASCIO

CIVIL ACTION

v.

NO. 11-1684

STATE FARM FIRE & CAS. CO.

SECTION "F"

ORDER AND REASONS
Before the Court is the plaintiff’s motion to stay.

The

plaintiff urges the Court to stay this litigation in light of two
pending writ applications to the Louisiana Supreme Court.1

State

Farm counters that the writ applications remain unresolved; because

1

The plaintiffs would have this Court stay their pending
Katrina litigation on the ground that writ applications are pending
before the Louisiana Supreme Court in
Beardon v. Louisiana
Citizens Prop. Ins. Corp., No. 2011-CA-1319 (La.App. 4 Cir.
11/2/11) and Duckworth v. Louisiana Farm Bureau Mut. Ins. Co., 2011
WL 5903854 (La.App. 4 Cir. 11/23/11). In Beardon, the defendant
insurance company appealed the trial court's failing to find that
the plaintiff forfeited the suspension of prescription (opted out)
by filing her individual suit before the class certification
decision in the putative class action of which she purported to be
a member; the Louisiana Fourth Circuit Court of Appeal denied the
supervisory writ. Conversely, in Duckworth, the Louisiana Fourth
Circuit Court of Appeal sustained the trial courts' decisions
sustaining exceptions of prescription. In the cases consolidated
in Duckworth, the plaintiffs were class members in putative class
actions against their insurers regarding Hurricane Katrina damage.
But the trial courts determined that the plaintiffs opted out of
the class actions by filing their own suits before the classes were
certified and, thus, the plaintiffs could not rely on the putative
class actions to toll prescription.
The state appellate court
agreed. Writs have not yet been granted or denied by the Louisiana
Supreme Court in either case. Nor has this Court reached the “opt
out” issue in similar litigation presented thus far. See, e.g.,
McKnight v. State Farm Fire & Cas. Co., No. 11-1686, 2012 WL 219024
(E.D. La. Jan. 25, 2012).
1

the Louisiana Supreme Court has not even determined whether the
writ applications will be accepted, resolution of the “opt out”
issue by the state high court remains purely hypothetical.
Court agrees.

The

Moreover, the plaintiffs have not satisfied the

Court that resolution of the “opt out” issue by the state high
court will be dispositive of the prescription issues raised by the
pending federal litigation.
Accordingly, the plaintiff’s motion to stay is DENIED.

New Orleans, Louisiana, March 28, 2012

______________________________
MARTIN L. C. FELDMAN
UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

2