Court Opinion

ID: 9551232
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 18:49:39.194752+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:23:21.514498
License: Public Domain

James, J.
(concurring) — I concur with Judge Williams’ opinion that the judgment should be affirmed. While I *188agree with Judge Horowitz that State Farm’s requested instruction No. 9 correctly states that State Farm’s duty to inform was limited to reasonably material and significant matters, I am satisfied that it was not prejudicial error to refuse the instruction.
As the jury was told by instruction No. 11, State Farm acted through Mr. Betts, the attorney whom it employed to represent the Hamiltons. And as stated in instruction No. 12, Mr. Betts was charged only with the duty to act as a “reasonably careful attorney” and to exercise only “ordinary” care. When read together, the instructions afforded State Farm full opportunity to argue that Mr. Betts’ duty to inform applied “only to reasonably material and significant matters.”
I am also in agreement with Judge Horowitz that instruction No. 16 is not a correct statement concerning an insurance lawyer’s duty when caught in a conflict of interest situation. But I am nevertheless satisfied that when, as required by instruction No. 1, the instructions are “considered as a whole,” the giving of instruction No. 16 did not constitute prejudicial error. The jury was instructed that the basis of the Hamiltons’ claim was that State Farm refused a reasonable settlement offer within the policy limits, not that the attorney employed to represent them faffed to terminate his relationship when an apparent conflict of interest developed.
In any event, I am satisfied that State Farm’s exception to instruction No. 16 was inadequate to preserve a claim of error. The exception stated was only that “there is simply no evidence upon which to base the instruction.” To preserve claimed error, an exception “must specifically point out and inform the trial court ‘of the points of law and questions of fact in dispute,’ in order to have the questions reviewed . . .” Gattavara v. General Ins. Co. of America, 166 Wash. 691, 698, 8 P.2d 421 (1932).