Napa Valley Estate Receives $33M Appraisal Award for Fire Damage

A Daily Journal article detailed how Covington secured an appraisal award of over $33 million for a large Napa Valley estate damaged in a wildfire. Christine Haskett discussed the case strategy and laid out the arguments put forward by the Covington litigation team to successfully win the appraisal award.

“Our position is that there are actually three separate types of damage to the house. There’s toxicological damage: the smoke, chemicals, char, and ash that soaked into the house, the wall spaces, the building materials, and the heating ducts. There’s thermal damage, which is damage done by extreme heat that weakens the building materials, including the walls and the roof, and then also chemical damage, meaning things like degradation to the metal components of the house,” she said.

Christine also discusses other issues left unresolved after this outcome, explaining that “the appraisal award does not address a number of other issues that are still outstanding in the case including damage to the contents of the house or the contents of the guesthouse, land stabilization issues, living expenses, and landscaping issues. This case is not yet over.”

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