Big insurance companies have often been portrayed, sometimes deservedly, as being among the villains of the post-Katrina nightmare on the Gulf Coast. But in a Mississippi case decided last week (certain to be appealed), the insurance companies and all their non-Katrina clients look far more like victims.

The case of Broussard v. State Farm, like probably thousands of similar cases, involves a dispute about whether wind, or only water, was responsible for the damage to a home. According to standard homeowners’ policies, wind damage is covered, but not flood damage. Stories are legion about insurance companies refusing to acknowledge much or even any damage from wind to houses that, according to elementary logic, suffered badly from both scourges.