Daily Archives: December 9, 2004

Fifth Circuit issues mold coverage decision

Posted on by
2

The Fifth Circuit issued an opinion yesterday in Fiess v. State Farm Lloyds in which the primary issue was whether mold damage was covered under a homeowner’s policy. In reversing a summary judgment in the insurer’s favor, the Fifth Circuit applied the doctrine of concurrent cause in concluding that the insureds might be able to segregate covered losses from uncovered losses. In so doing, the Fifth Circuit also certified the following question to the Texas Supreme Court:

Does the ensuing loss provision contained in Section IExclusions, part 1(f) of the Homeowners Form B (HO-B) insurance policy as prescribed by the Texas Department of Insurance effective July 8, 1992 (Revised January 1, 1996), when read in conjunction with the remainder of the policy, provide coverage for mold contamination caused by water damage that is otherwise covered under the policy?

A refuge from family rejection

Posted on by
Reply

This NY Times article tells the interesting story of a heartbreaking conflict within a family and the Point Foundation‘s efforts to attempt to mitigate the damage that such conflicts can cause. Check it out.

Bobby Cox buys Schlotzsky’s

Posted on by
Reply

Bobby Cox Companies, Inc. of Ft. Worth — owner of the Rosa’s Cafe, Taco Villa and Texas Burger chains among its other far-flung assets — bought the assets of Schlotzsky’s franchise deli sandwich company out of bankruptcy yesterday in San Antonio. The purchase price was about $28.5 million. Here are the earlier posts on the Schlotzsky’s bankruptcy case.

Milton Friedman on socialism and the course of free markets

Posted on by
Reply

When Milton Friedman writes about economic history, people listen. Writing in today’s Wall Street Journal ($), Professor Friedman observes the following:

To summarize: After World War II, opinion was socialist while practice was free market; currently, opinion is free market while practice is heavily socialist. We have largely won the battle of ideas (though no such battle is ever won permanently); we have succeeded in stalling the progress of socialism, but we have not succeeded in reversing its course. We are still far from bringing practice into conformity with opinion.

Read the whole piece.

More Econoblog

Posted on by
Reply

The Wall Street Journal has revived its Econoblog series, this time with Cal economics professor Brad DeLong replacing Jon Irons in discussing topics with George Mason University economist Tyler Cowen. The subject today is the Bush Administration’s surprising decision to retain John W. Snow as Treasury Secretary. From this first round, Mr. DeLong looks to be a better choice to serve as Mr. Cowen’s counterpart in this discussion. Check it out.

Another major change in the Medical Center

Posted on by
Reply

As these earlier posts reflect, a huge Texas Medical Center rift arose earlier this year between Baylor College of Medicine and the Methodist Hospital over Baylor’s decision to terminate its 50 year relationship with Methodist and make St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital its primary teaching hospital.
The Baylor-Methodist split has now officially replaced the longstanding acrimony between the world reknowned heart surgeons — Dr. Michael DeBakey of Baylor’s DeBakey Heart Center and Dr. Denton Cooley of St. Luke’s Texas Heart Institute — as the most severe professional turf war in the always tumultuous world of academic medicine in the Medical Center.
The signal for the change in the relative positions of these two heartfelt disputes was the announcement yesterday that Dr. Cooley had appointed a Baylor heart surgeon — Dr. Joseph Coselli — as the chief of adult cardiac surgery at the Texas Heart Institute.
Longtime observers of Medical Center politics expected dogs and cats to live together as best friends before such a development would ever occur.
This development will revitalize the Texas Heart Institute, which used to be one of the nation’s premier heart centers before lagging behind the top national centers over the past decade or so. The appointment also means that the Texas Heart Institute will be led by an unusual management team comprised of doctors from both of the Medical Center’s medical schools, Dr. Coselli from Baylor and Dr. James Willerson from the UT Health Science Center at Houston, who is the institute’s president-elect, medical director, chief of cardiology and director of cardiology research.
Here is the Chronicle story on this development.