Opinion ID: 2628016
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Was the Superior Court's Framing of the Case Inappropriate?

Text: Gibson makes a more general argument that the superior court improperly limited disclosure of relevant facts to the jury. Gibson argues that the insurance contract was the basis of her claim and therefore it was necessary evidence. Gibson argues that because of the court's limitations on the evidence she presented, she was unable to explain to the jury why the parties were even litigating. Gibson seems to claim that the court's rulings amounted to hiding GEICO's identity from the jury and resulted in charades in trial[ ]. What she seems to take issue with is the way in which the court framed the case. Gibson cites a number of Florida cases to support her contention that failure to advise the jury of GEICO's role in this case is reversible error. GEICO responds that the Florida cases do not mean that a plaintiff in Florida is entitled to solicit testimony about why the carrier refused to pay policy limits. Gibson relies principally on Lamz v. GEICO General Insurance Co., [12] although she also cites virtually all of Lamz's predecessors and progeny. The Lamzes, the victims of an automobile accident, sued both the driver of the vehicle that injured them and the vehicle's owner. [13] GEICO, the Lamzes' underinsured motorist carrier, was also joined as a defendant. [14] The trial court denied the Lamzes' request to specifically refer to GEICO as a UIM carrier, reasoning that reference to GEICO as the Lamzes' insurance company was sufficient to alert the jury to the position of the parties. [15] The Supreme Court of Florida disagreed, concluding: Identifying the insurance company as merely a plaintiff's insurer without clarifying the full capacity in which it is being sued does not make the jury fully aware of the underinsured carrier's posture in the litigation. . . . We have made it clear that the jury should know who the parties are, and in this case, the jury was not fully apprised of Geico's specific party status.[ [16] ] Gibson argues that the jury was unaware of GEICO's posture in the litigation reviewed here because the jury did not know that GEICO was Gibson's UIM carrier. Lamz and the related cases Gibson cites can be distinguished on the ground that they involved more than two parties. Because there were multiple defendants in Lamz, and because GEICO was identified as the Lamzes' insurance carrier, the relationship between GEICO and the other defendants was not clear. The jury might have thought GEICO, as the Lamzes' insurer, had an interest in maximizing the liability of the driver and owner of the vehicle that collided with the Lamzes. In that case GEICO's interests would have been aligned with the Lamzes for the purposes of determining the liability of the tortfeasor. But since GEICO was the Lamzes' UIM carrier, GEICO actually had an interest in minimizing the liability of the other defendants and therefore had interests that were entirely adverse to the Lamzes. The extent of the adversity between parties seems to be what the Supreme Court of Florida meant by the underinsured carrier's posture. The charades in trial to which Gibson refers occur when the interests of the parties are not clear and the jury might not realize that the insurance company's interests are aligned with their co-defendants'. In this case, there is little chance of such confusion. GEICO was the sole defendant. The only disputed issue was the extent of Gibson's damages. It was apparent to the jury that GEICO was trying to minimize Gibson's damages. There is no reasonable possibility that the jury was led to believe that GEICO and Gibson were not completely adverse parties. Thus the Florida court's reasoning in Lamz is not applicable in Gibson's case.