In one of the stranger cases we’ve seen in a while (which is saying a lot), the Fort Worth Court of Appeals has reversed a nearly $200,000 judgment against an insurer for contractual and extracontractual damages arising from an alleged lightning strike at the insured’s home.
State Farm Lloyds v. John Hilmi (No. 02-23-00491-CV; October 3, 2024) stemmed from a thunderstorm that struck the Wichita Falls area in June 2018. Plaintiff, who was out of town on the day of the storm, claimed that lightning had struck his home, causing significant damage to the house, some fixtures, a swimming pool, and landscaping. State Farm’s adjuster agreed, and the company ended up paying about $700,000 over the next year repairing the damage. In October 2019, however, Plaintiff made another claim: that the lightning strike had damaged or destroyed an extensive list of personal property in the home, as well as property that was not in the home (such as the family’s Apple watches) but that later turned not to function when plugged into the home’s electrical outlets. This list, presented on a spreadsheet (again, more than a year after the alleged strike) included ceiling fans, lamps, and a washer and dryer, but also hoverboards, an elliptical machine, insect traps, wireless headphones, heated blankets, “numerous” Wii games and accessories, a water-dispenser filter an Xbox Live Gold: 12 Month Membership, a golf cart, external hard drives, a portable tripod, television streaming sticks, and “several ‘$100 Fortnite In-Game Currency Cards.’” Upon receiving this impressive list, State Farm understandably demurred. Plaintiff sued, alleging contractual and extracontractual claims. After a lengthy trial, a jury awarded Plaintiff more than $189,000. State Farm appealed.
In an opinion by Chief Justice Sudderth, the court of appeals reversed and remanded for new trial. State Farm argued that Plaintiff’s claim failed on legal sufficiency grounds because Plaintiff failed to show by expert testimony that lightning could possibly have damaged all of these items, particularly those that were not in the home at the time and plugged in later. It didn’t help matters that State Farm’s adjuster never got to inspect most of the items because Plaintiff threw them away. State Farm’s expert witness opined that lightning could not have caused damage to all of the items for various reasons: some had internal surge protectors, others were nowhere near the alleged lightning strike, others were not susceptible to that kind of electrical damage, and, as to the items that weren’t even on the premises, lightning doesn’t stick around in the home and damage electrical items at some later date (as Plaintiff claimed).
The court agreed with State Farm that Plaintiff’s failure to produce an expert that could testify as to each of the allegedly damages items on Plaintiff’s spreadsheet fatally undermined his case. Although a jury of lay people could reasonably conclude that a lightning strike could cause immediate damage to a structure and that a power surge might damage certain electrical components, it was not within a lay person’s ken “to determine how—or whether—the lightning strike(s) that hit [Plaintiff’s] land could or did produce such extensive, multi-layered damage” (citations omitted). The court thus reversed the judgment and remanded for new trial.
