On October 26, 2010 a Hancock County jury awarded $1,170,000 to Coastal Hardware Store in a bad faith case against Lloyds of London. Coastal Hardware was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. Lloyds refused to pay the claim despite accepting premiums for the insurance. The verdict is one of the largest—if not the largest—in the history of Hancock County.

Coastal Hardware is located in “the” Kiln. An earlier trial in August resulted in a mistrial due to the acoustically challenged Hancock County courtroom. I am not sure if the retrial was moved to Gulfport or relocated to a different courtroom in Hancock County.

The case involved an interesting twist. Two days before Katrina, Lloyds mailed the policy to the Kiln post office. Being the U.S. Postal Service, the policy did not arrive before Katrina. The Kiln post office was destroyed in Katrina, so Coastal Hardware never received the policy.

Circuit Judge Lisa Dodson ruled that the governing contract consisted of quote sheets provided before Katrina.

Coastal Hardware thought that it had a strong punitive damages case, but the jury voted to not award punitives by a 9–3 margin. Hancock County is very conservative. My guess is that the jury thought that over a million in damages was enough.

Former U.S. Attorney Brad Pigott of Pigott Reeves & Johnson in Jackson represented Coastal Hardware. Whit Johnson of Currie Johnson in Flowood represented Lloyds.