A federal judge in Louisiana has ordered a Houston law firm to be fined $200 for each duplicate, dismissed or otherwise problematic lawsuit it has filed stemming from damage caused by Hurricanes Laura and Delta in 2020.
Judge James Cain Jr. of the Western District of Louisiana issued the order Oct. 21 against McClenny, Moseley and Associates PLLC, which filed nearly 1,700 claims against insurers in a four-day period just prior to the deadline for filing such cases.
“... The court has determined that there are filings by plaintiffs that have already settled lawsuits, duplicate filings and filings for damage to property that is outside the typical geographical area where reported damage was caused by Hurricanes Laura and Delta,” Cain said in the order.
The judge’s order also states that lawsuits filed by the Houston firm cannot be “mass mediated, litigated or settled” and the cases need to go through the established case-management procedure for the hurricane claims.
Zach Moseley, a partner in the law firm, said McClenny, Moseley & Associates has been working to resolve Cain’s concerns.
“We filed roughly 1,700 or so lawsuits in a four-day period on the eve of the statute of limitations of Hurricane Laura,” Moseley told the Louisiana Record. “There were some rumors that started. And essentially the rumors were that we were trying to turn Hurricane Laura into a mass tort and get global settlement offers for our docket. Completely false, not true.”
He stressed that the law firm had invested heavily in artificial intelligence, automation and technology to allow the firm to quickly and efficiently mediate hundreds of cases.
“I still have the ability with my technology to give these cases the individual attention they deserve,” Moseley said.
Out of the 1,642 cases that Cain identified in his order, the law firm identified 98 cases that “could be considered in that sphere of cases he was looking to fine us on,” Moseley said. Of those cases, 80 were intentionally filed after they were dismissed from a single lawsuit, he said, adding that unbeknownst to the law firm, the court had gone ahead and refiled them.
In addition, 13 cases were refiled because the law firm had not received confirmation from the court that they had been processed, he said, and in the remaining cases the plaintiffs insisted that their properties were damaged by Hurricane Laura when the firm advised that another hurricane was the culprit.
“I’m very hopeful that the judge sees our reasoning and logic behind all of this,” Moseley said, adding that the parties in the litigation want to move forward on rebuilding Louisiana.
“It's just an overwhelming task because Louisiana was hit with four hurricanes in a 15-month period,” he said.