By Tim Eaton
American-Statesman Staff
While poring through an ocean of legal documents, a Houston-based trial lawyer stumbled upon several emails to and from employees of Texas Windstorm Insurance Association that disparaged Hispanics, Arabs and African-Americans, often using racist language.
Lawyer Steve Mostyn, who is representing the Brownsville Independent School District in a case over unpaid claims, found the offensive emails among nearly a million other documents from the often-maligned Texas Windstorm Insurance Association, or TWIA, that he obtained through the discovery process in the case.
The offensive emails demonstrate a culture of racism within the quasi-governmental agency that directly led to the refusal to pay legitimate claims for damages caused by Hurricane Dolly in 2008 to more than 50 campuses belonging to the Brownsville school district, Mostyn said. The district was 98.2 percent Hispanic when the storm hit, according to an official report by the Texas Education Agency.
“Race was a factor considered in the denial of claims,” Mostyn told the American-Statesman. Most of the emails obtained by Mostyn do not reference specific claims; a few do, but none refer to the Brownsville school district claims. Many of the emails are crude or offensive jokes or anti-immigrant “petitions,” sent to and from high-ranking TWIA officials in 2008 and 2009.
TWIA officials didn’t respond to interview requests.
Mostyn, a lawyer who has made millions suing the insurer of last resort for coastal Texans, filed a complaint Tuesday with the Texas Department of Insurance related to the racist emails. The department has had oversight due to TWIA’s precarious financial situation following thousands of lawsuits after Hurricane Ike struck Texas in 2008.
In a formal two-pronged complaint, the Mostyn Law Firm said that TWIA “failed in its duty to promptly pay and reasonably investigate claims” and that the Texas Department of Insurance “failed to use its administrative oversight to investigate TWIA’s race-based claims handling decisions.”
Mostyn’s firm also formally requested the appointment a special investigator to review “the apparent culture of racism at the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association.” Additionally, the investigator should look into the fallout from any race-based claims handling decisions on Texas homeowners, school districts, businesses, and government entities, the Mostyn Law Firm said in the complaint.
Read a more in-depth version of this story here.
