Court Opinion

ID: 9545037
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 17:05:04.223476+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:13:55.839858
License: Public Domain

UDALL, Vice Chief Justice
(concurring).
The court decides that plaintiff’s detailed statement of loss amounted to substantial compliance with the proof of loss requirements in the policy. It thus becomes unnecessary to consider whether error was committed by taking the question of waiver from the jury. I agree with both conclusions and for that reason concur in the result.
But I take objection to the implications that evidence of settlement negotiations between company and claimant is properly admissible to establish waiver when that issue is decisive. Admittedly, this was the rule at common law. In 1954, however, our legislature provided that, Investigating any loss or claim * * * or engaging in negotiations looking toward a possible settlement” should not constitute waiver of “any provision of a policy or of any defense of the insurer thereunder.” A.R.S. Section 20-1130. In my view, the common law doctrine was thus abrogated and evidence of negotiations made thenceforth inadmissible on questions of waiver, as on questions of liability generally. Leigh v. Swartz, 74 Ariz. 108, 245 P.2d 262 (1952); Fries v. Anderson, Clayton & Co., 190 Cal. App.2d 667, 12 Cal.Rptr. 336 (Ct.App.1961).
Because insurance legislation is designed to safeguard the welfare of policyholders does not mean that every section of the code must give the insured some advantage over the company. The section under ques*84tion appears to be nothing more than an extension of the familiar principle that compromises are favored by the law. See Schneider v. McAleer, 39 Ariz. 190, 4 P.2d 903 (1931). I cannot see that it imposes an undue hardship on claimants to insist that they comply with all the requirements of their contract. Precisely because “state regulation must be effective,” I would exclude evidence of negotiations, giving the statute the only interpretation to which I believe it is susceptible.