In his first solo trial, lawyer Chris Leavitt recently won $261,724.51 for his client Caribbean United Church. But it’s a question jurors asked the Houston trial judge during deliberations that especially pleases Leavitt: Could they award the plaintiff more damages than it had sought?
The dispute between the church and its insurer and agent began on Sept. 21, 2010, when Leavitt’s client filed Caribbean United Church v. Lindsey Gaston, et al. In its Feb. 3 amended petition, the plaintiff alleged that in 2008 defendant Lindsey Gaston, an insurance agent for defendant Church Solutions Inc., sold Caribbean United a policy that lacked windstorm coverage even though Caribbean United had requested the same coverage it had in a previous policy that had included windstorm coverage. As a result, the plaintiff alleged, when Hurricane Ike hit Galveston later in 2008, the church had no windstorm coverage for damage it sustained.
