Allstate Insurance company must pay a Louisiana man who lost his home to Hurricane Katrina more than $2.8 million of damages and penalties, a federal jury Monday in a case largely on it be decided wind hinged or storm surge, that company his house.

The jury found Allstate - it claims that most of the damage due to storm surge, an event in its policy was not - handled no paid Robert Weiss enough money, to cover wind damage to home. The judgment included a fine of $1.5 million for the company at the right fast enough non-payment.

Allstate lawyer Judy Barrasso said in closing arguments that Katrina winds were not strong enough to do the damage.

The lawyer for the white, whose Heimat was on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain, Slidell in the area said the jury in closing arguments that the House too high above the sea level had been destroyed by Katrina's storm surge. 29 Passed the eye of Katrina East of Slidell in the morning of August, 2005. He claimed also, that the House was 17 metres above sea level and engineering data suggested that only 14 feet of surge hit area. "It reached never below the House," he said.

White, an Allstate homeowners had policy with $343,000 for the apartment and $240,100 for personal belongings.

The company the majority of damage on Katrina's storm surge, the debt paid $29,483 for structural damage and $14,787 for additional cost of living.

The Allstate Barrasso said sustained winds in the House not over 100 mph. "There were some signs, the winds were not strong enough to overthrow this House and the storm surge was," she said.

Jim Neva, a surveyor and engineer who inspected the House for Allstate, initially said Robert Weiss, who is listed as the policyholder, that wind may have destroyed House, before the surge of water washed away the remnants of produced.

He later backed up and moved to technical consultant Craig Rogers Rimkus consulting group from this conclusion. Rogers, who wrote the final report of the home for Allstate, Neva, convinces that this flood demolished the House.

Rogers said that he personally property to not check after he wrote the report. He said that he sometimes collected by other engineers of Rimkus - a practice based its conclusions on evidence he described as usual. But Trahant movement questioned.

"Why choose Allstate, to leave on an engineer, never a plot on which long to toe after he stamped his report?" Trahant said in closing arguments.

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