presented to this court on appeal is whether expert testimony is required to establish the elements of duty in breach and a claim for negligence against an insurance agent establishing the standard of care political to a licensed professional in colorado often requires expert testimony the off repeated rationale for this requirement is that the standard of care and such a situation implicates specialized or technical knowledge that is outside the common knowledge and experience of ordinary jurors however courts of justice consistently held that where the relevant standard of care does not implicate such specialized knowledge expert testimony is not required but another way where the a political standard of care is within the understanding of ordinary jurors expert testimony is not necessary the individual that helped mr al a bassy and at the at the root of this controversy is that mr ortiz assisted mr al a bassy incomplete in colorado coverage selection form and in selecting the coverage in question there were two there were two things that were selected that are contradictory i'm on the one hand mr ortiz assisted mr alabaster in requesting minimum insurance coverage in colorado which is of course twenty five thousand dollars that he knew and that simultaneously requested fifty thousand dollars in coverage and again mr ickes testified tall this during his deposition and so at the end of the day what the question is is whether this was an inconsistent form so we just look at the form and say it's inconsistent to check both boxes correct your honor and so that's why that's appellants position that this certainly is not the sort of case where expert testimony is needed to explain to a jury hey these are different numbers uninsured motorist coverage not necessarily are i mean essentially what we'd be looking at is it's what's the minimum coverage and so multiple colorado court opinions and an average layman would know that just off the top of your head well certainly  there's two things that can be helpful here so the st of course is that the district court the judge can instruct the jurors on the law but secondly and more importantly mr ortiz said in his deposition as much and colorado courts have held that where expert testimony is not necessar lay witness testimony can serve to establish the standard of care and facts such as this is the minimum insurance coverage in colorado and more specifically that mr ortiz knew of these numbers were not identical and yet somehow failed to catch the contradiction in analogous to the present case is the case in golden rule insurance corporation v greenfield and in that case an insurance agent again assisted an applicant in completing her insurance application however a mistake was made in the application was submitted with contradictory information critically of the greenfield court ruled that even without expert testimony a reasonable jury could find that the insurance agent that dicta the next line that you just reading your order judge  that case there was an expert proffered that's correct your honor and so one of that was actually one of the things that judge made also mentioned in the trial below but one of the parts of  ts contentions here is that this is not this specific question is not one that has received a direct answer and colorado specifically whether expert testimony is needed to establish the standard of care put couple against an insurance agent and so colorado law has held up we'll have the federal and state level that where that's the case either federal district courts or analogous jurisdictions is a store nearly helpful in shedding light on will do we need expert testimony here or not  advised him to get an amount equal to his own liability or not strictly speaking your honor because one of the things you're pulling off is that there's been numerous color court decisions that says the responsibilities of an insurance agent to advise are very limited right and that's not exactly what we're talking about here we're not saying that mr or p should have told mr out assy hey you could have more coverage if you want and just failed to do that even though it does appear that that didn't happen  rather what we're saying is that in failing to submit a valid and inconsistent of a document free of inconsistency i mr a he has breached his duty of care the duty of reasonable care to mr allopathy and therein lies the claim for negligence you can for a few dollars more a month or whatever bump your coverage up to five hundred thousand or three hundred thousand or a one million or whatever amount of coverage you choose to protect yourself for your own negligence you can get it for the negligence of others and i understand what you're saying your honor and no that's not a palace position so opponents position is that mr ortiz should have decline send the defective colorado covered selection form over to the insurance company had they done that one of the provisions of the form is hey if you don't turn in this form you will have coverage limits equal to your liability coverage mr alabaster had liability coverage in the amount of one honor so getting back to the primary question here is whether or not it's a reasonable standard of care or something different some professional standard of care to post guy hadn't done anything you had a one million bucks of coverage and what we're what we're looking at is going to be that in colorado a licensed professional can be subject either to a standard of reasonable care or to the standard professional care depending on the conduct in question there are a number of cases that parse a part  certain activities are certainly going to be subject to the professional care standard while the reasonable care may apply in other circumstances the quinton a case is a good example of this where it was a case involving a blood bank and the  found that hey any medical things associated with moving the blood around her hand how you handle that that that's a matter of professional care that requires expert testimony but if it's something on the business side say advertising something like this would certainly be within the purview of ordinary lay jurors and so that a similar a similar dichotomy is taking place here where perhaps it's conceivable that there are some activities that agents insurance agents could engage in that would require that would be subject to the standard of professional care and that would require expert testimony but the facts presented in this case simply don't rise to that level in this case did you file a certificate of review under the colorado requirement when you're talking about professional negligence and liability we did your honor and sort of out of this one how does that square with the argument you're making now that this is not that kind of issue that a layperson could determine correct essential was done out of an abundance of caution  sort of at the beginning at the genesis of the genesis of the case that appeared hey maybe this is something we should do after doing that and looking into the issue further it appeared no this is the sort of thing that certainly does not require expert testimony and rather than incur additional expenses and c client you know that session made look case law appears to not require expert testimony because the facts giving rise to this claim for negligence were so simple and did not require special or fantastic or or specialized or  endorse an insurance expert necessary to establish standard of care judge major was clear about that in his order as well as during questioning to then plaintiff's counsel during the summer judgment with the expert has been required to testify you should check two boxes if the application for insurance key a key question judge will sarah the insurance expert which in fact we have one that's retained we have a report that we would have introduced at the time it come explains that in the context of commercial auto insurance those limits instead of being expressed and split limits what we might see an insurance policy policy of twenty five thousand dollars per individual fifty thousand per accident there uniformly expressed as single limits in the context of commercial insurance that's why the twenty five thousand dollars figure which would be the the ordinary minimum it's then expressed instead of split it's expressed as a single limits in commercial policies i think the plaintiffs are appealing at this phase as a misunderstanding of the difference between those two boxes just because they're not identical does not mean that they are in conflict and in fact checking that box was an exercise of professional judgment by mr ortiz the the agent in this case because this was specific to the realm of commercial auto insurance we are of course  requesting that the court affirmed judge mage's decision but what i'd like to do sort of refocus the the discussion this point about standard review as i understand from briefings there's no dispute the true standard view here is abuse of discretion there is there is case ortiz and there are what's your best case sure our best case is essentially establish the principle as to when the exercise of the need for expert witnesses is necessary such as h that underlie the events they're going to have to actually oversee a trial at some point and they're the ones that need to make sure that the jury is not left blindly guessing here judge major clearly felt that professional care was implicated judge maajid heard our arguments about the complexity of m boxes and he determined that an expert was necessary so i guess your point is that it's not i mean how we how do we decide what is here checking the boxes versus understanding the form which is kind of what i understand your argument to be that the former is more complex is that subject to abuse of discretion yes well or do we look at that afresh right i believe judge major gre exercise of professional judgment in filling out but also reviewing that form so i believe that's where the expert testimony would come into play but that determination is subject to abuse of discretion correct i think the term in that expert testimony as testimony was needed to understand that process is within the abuse of discretion standard so i guess we shouldn't just look this is your argument we shouldn't just look at the form and say oh we can understand or it could be understood we need to differ absolutely reader i i would certainly agree that a layman could see that the numbers twenty five and fifty are different there but the impact of what that means in this context an ordinary person would not understand because mitt marking requires a professional knowledge of the intersection between colorado state law guardian minimums but with insurance industry norms and standards specifically in the realm of commercial auto insurance let me let me ask this question but not s the exact figure but i believe it's really not the exact but like like it's five bucks versus five hundred and fifty i mean that i'm going to become concerned about how much sure my understanding is it would be relatively minimal but i think it's important to to correct some think it's important for an insurance agent or broker to say to their clients this is briscoe if you pay three dollars more you're going to get a one million dollars of uninsured coverage but if if i check this box you're you're going to save three dollars but you're only going to get fifty it's very good question your honor it's a very good question so how about the answer the answer would be that very specifically mr  in this case direct that he want to be minimum coverage he's routinely reduces un coverage both personally and professionally we've seen this in his past and i suppose jim is it should be an insurance agent advise  sure client that forty three dollars minimal amount you can bump coverage to protect yourself up to a one million dollars rather than to protect yourself for twenty five thousand dollars if some drunk guy hits you it is doesn't happen sure it's sure and you're i believe case law cited in the briefing indicates that that is not the duty of the insurance agent this is not my question is whether it's duty is my question is in the exercise of proper judgment shouldn't an agent do that i would say so yes you are and isn't that the reason that if you don't check any boxes it's going to bump up it's so obvious that if you don't check any figure i don't know exactly what it would be but again mr ortiz was following the specific direction i think counsel even even mentioned that he was seeking the minimum coverage he testified in step is ition i wanted the minimum amount to allow me to operate my company under colorado law right i understand but shouldn't isn't that relatively obvious that somebody should tell you that for a nominal amount you can yet your maximum coverage or rather the minimum amount you may think is what you want in this circumstance i know there was a past relationship between these two they had worked together to try to bind a policy in the past but further i think there's a clear understanding from the record this case mr obasi he knew that he knew how insurance works he's been purchasing commercial insurance running his own company for the better part of twenty years of that help your i think that helps us to me that that puts him in a better position to buy as a lay person without having to hire high falutin expert telling you that for a few dollars more you can protect yourself and are we talking about mr ortiz the agent or mr abbas of the planet the planet of the planet well the pla signed off he was given a letter explaining the import of the form it was going over with the agent he and in hindsight he simply saying i don't know how that works i just did whatever mr ortiz said it's clear that he had a much more it's been understanding of that but even someone of that who has that experience if they are able to claim that they don't know how this process works i don't know how an ordinary person who does not run their own limo service couldn't stand it a couple more questions at the time that judge made said this is a case  requires that expert that he afford to play different opportunity at that point to taint an expert he repeatedly asked them why they had not disclosed one but he that there was never opportune ever requested one he did not afford them because one was never questioned neither informally to us or formally to the court steadfastly mistake and maintain we don't need an expert and we don't intend to produce one and was that point that we move for summary judgment because frankly we had  because it was a glaring hole in the case that made it clear they weren't going to change on that another reason why we feel it would be unjust or prejudicial as requested in their brief to give them a nd bite at the apple to now go back to that after our client is expended the time and resources to pursue this and after relying upon their repeated steadfast position that they would not be disclosing the expert in relation to insurance so i just thought you said that he did afforded an opportunity to do it they  to when they were past their deadline to do so at that point they never requested any additional time so there are opportunity was of course before the deadline to do so i think he wanted them to ask for more time they never did so he may well  granted that and at that being in the position that time we melet me mobile read that because the case had not gotten this far down the road so that sure absolutely i think that there's also agreement between the parties as to what the legal standard was it seems that all the cases that been cited they talk about the ordinary roam of everyday persons and professional understanding versus ordinary persons i don't think we have any disagreement about that so i think that there's no disagreement frankly that the court played the correct legal standard i think what happened ultimately is appellant just not happy with the determination that doesn't mean that the wrong standards applied and of course if you look at the sprint case which both parties cites you for the standard for abus discretion the decision by the the district court must be arbitrary whimsical manifestly unreasonable or applying an altogether wrong legal standard like say following a preponderance of the evidence versus beyond a reasonable doubt something like that we're talking about the same test here so there really i think no dispute that the correct legal standard was plied i think it's also worth looking at the efforts that judge made went to in this effort when this issue was put in front of him we st raised the issue about the deficiency expert of care so i don't know what more judge maged could have done at that point he was very attuned to this he was very hands on and how he handled this he was meticulous to the details of it certainly not a case where he acted arbitrarily even by the appellant th circuit case indicating that for an insurance agent having undertaken to procure coverage for an insurer the age must do so with professional care even conceding the tanit in the core of cases that acknowledge that sometimes there's an exception to that where mere reasonable care applies it's still circumstantial it's depended upon the facts in front of you as i discussed earlier the issue of marking those boxes is much more complex than it appears on the surface so if it had been the the standard of mere reasonable care applied the character case tells us that reasonable care is measured relevant to that profession it would not be a reasonable ordinary person would be a reasonable insurgents agent with those duties training skills and again that's where the knowledge as to how this one works in conjunction with commercial interests comes into play limit and the client the he gets sued by his client the client says i don't have to hire expert to say that a lawyer shouldn't miss that limitation yes and i that case with the client needed expert know your i think the hanson and the iran cases that are side in the briefing make it clear that that is such an obvious error than ordinary person would be familiar with the general concept of rights the next example is the risk of example a doctor leaves a sponge and patients cavity during the epidemic to me what about that one right i think that would be probably not requiring expert testimony would fall on the line of melville and which make it clear that even the context of medical malpractise claims sometimes there's mere reason most honor to care that the ordinary person could or could contemplate however that's the narrow exception dollars rather than twenty five thousand dollars there's even an expert to say that he should have been told that i believe that exceeds the duty of what has been what has been brought up in the  talking about the exercise of professional judgment and an understanding of those dollar figures the difference in the coverage is i think it's far more far more complex than merely cutting off the wrong leg for saying it's thank you thank you very your honor's counsel mentioned at least two things i'd like to follow up on the limited amount of time that i have two reasons that were offered for why this case is disanalogy us from say the sponge it left in the body or an attorney missing a statute of limitations was that this was a case that involved what was called professional judgment and mention was made of a single limit versus a split limit i'm it's worth noting that in this deposition mr ortiz the agent did not provide some lucid analysis of why he went you disagree with that but i'm wondering why well i think we could have a argument in the alternative your honor and so assuming just for the sake of argument that abuse of discretion applies i think i would dissent from what the opposing counsel said a minute ago  that all parties would agree that the judge didn't apply that the judge applied the correct legal standard we would of course say that he did not this is a situation where we supposed to determine in tell me if this is wrong did he abused its discretion in determining that this form was more complex than simply checking the wrong or two boxes he had to have come professional discretionary by he in understanding form and that is why there was an extra test required here so i'm asking you do you agree that terminations whether it's just checking two boxes that are consistent versus there is actually some advice thing going on is that determination subject to abuse of discretion yes your honor i think so ok so how do you say you would have to show me abused his discretion thinking this is a more complex determination correct your honor and there's multiple standards multiple ways to show  abuse your discretion and that's why arguing here is that judge made and reviewing this foreman and in concluding only an expert could make sense of this this require specialized technology that that's incorrect this is the sort of thing that could be interpreted by a late witness just like missing a statute of limitations cut and so in terms of that the nd argument offered by counsel was look this is a situation where you know perhaps a lay jury could understand the difference between check into boxes but what they can't understand is the ramifications of doing that again not true the same thing is it could be said about an attorney who misses the statute of limitations perhaps a lay juror would not off the cuff be fully aware of what happens when you miss the statute of limitations but certainly they could be made to understand that missing a key deadline to a case is a breach of the standard of care and that's a parent's position here as well that and in you know mr ortiz a sole job was to procure insurance for missed out bassy and directing him to select inconsistent contradictory coverages he breached his standard of care which was reasonable care not not a professional carrick and this is not the sort of thing that require specialized or technical knowledge looking to jurisdictions outside of colorado has yielded the same result  there simply are no cases that say yes insurance agents there are just so calm complex convoluted we we need ensure we need experts in order to determine what they're saying and that's perhaps part of the reason that the duties of insurance agents are are so