A spokesman for State Farm said today that it has now settledmore than 200 hurricane damage lawsuits brought by the ScruggsKatrina Group in Mississippi.

Spokesman Jeff McCollum said in addition that a case involving38 plaintiffs in a federal court action accusing the firm of civilracketeering had been dismissed.

Terms of the settlements were confidential. Mr. McCollum saidonly about 250 other cases remain.

The cases against the company took a major blow when the keyattorney involved in the actions, Richard "Dickie" Scruggs, pleadedguilty in U.S. District Court in Oxford, Miss., last March forattempting to bribe a judge. The judge was assigned to a caseinvolving a Scruggs law firm suit against another lawyer over $26.5million in attorneys' fees from another Hurricane Katrina-relatedsettlement with State Farm.

The racketeering suit that was tossed was brought in June of2007. It accused the insurer of conspiring with an engineering firmand an adjusting concern to defraud coastal homeowners out of $3.97million.

The Little Rock, Ark., office of Provost Umphrey, the law firmnow representing policyholders in the hurricane cases, said in astatement that confidential settlement agreements have beenreached.

Ninety percent of the storm damage cases the firm had againstState Farm in Mississippi have been settled. "A combination offactors came together to allow the successful resolution of theseclaims, including the compensation amount, the exhaustion of theclients with the legal pursuit of their claims, unfavorable legalrulings over the last year and half and a fresh perspectiveafforded by new counsel," said a statement from ProvostUmphrey.

"A settlement always represents compromise on the part of bothparties, and while that is true here, both State Farm and theindividual claimants were mutually desirous of bringing thelitigation to a close and putting this matter behind them," thestatement concluded.

In addition to his comments, Mr. McCollum e-mailed a statementsaying, "State Farm always tries to resolve any disputes with ourpolicyholders and are pleased we were able to do so here. We aresatisfied with the outcome, but at plaintiff/insured's request,we're not able to discuss the settlement amounts."

Regarding the racketeering suit,the company said it "does notengage in the sort of activity alleged in this litigation.Now-disbarred attorney Dickie Scruggs made unsupported RICO claimsto great fanfare in June 2007. Since then, numerous legal,political, media and PR tactics used by Scruggs have been exposedas distortions. The baseless RICO claims have been dismissed andthe underlying contract claims are in the process of beingsettled."