Court Opinion

ID: 9528101
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:37:01.550025+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:26:29.443818
License: Public Domain

KENNAKD, J.
I concur in the judgment. In my view, however, much of the discussion in the majority opinion is unnecessary. As I shall explain, the majority interjects a doctrine of civil, pleading into an insurance dispute that has nothing to do with pleading. Moreover, the majority reaches out to *874decide an issue concerning the scope of “related” acts or omissions under an insurance contract that is superfluous to a resolution of the narrow dispute in this case, and decides the issue in unnecessarily broad terms.
I
This is an insurance case. The question here is whether, when an attorney commits two separate acts of negligence in the same matter that preclude his client’s right to recover a single sum against either of two other parties, on either of two legal theories, the attorney’s malpractice insurer is liable for only one claim under the policy, or is liable for two claims. The majority determines that under these circumstances the insurer can be liable for only one claim. I agree with the result, but not the reasoning, of the majority opinion.
The majority analyzes the question of whether one or two claims were made under the insurance policy in this case in terms of the “primary rights” doctrine. This doctrine concerns pleadings filed in court. But a claim made under an insurance policy is not the same as a pleading filed in court. Instead, the determination of rights under an insurance policy is a question of contract law. (Mid-Century Ins. Co. v. Bash (1989) 211 Cal.App.3d 431, 436 [259 Cal.Rptr. 382]; 1 Witkin, Summary of Cal. Law (9th ed. 1987) Contracts, § 682, p. 616; Civ. Code, § 1635 [“All contracts, whether public or private, are to be interpreted by the same rules, except as otherwise provided by this code.”].) The parties to a contract can define “claim” any way they want. Here, they defined it without reference to the rules of civil pleading.
The parties defined “claim” as “a demand ... for money against the Insured.” This definition can be applied to the facts of this case without reference to pleading doctrines. As the record in this case shows, the former client of the insured, Bay Cities Paving & Grading, Inc., made a demand on the insured attorney, Robert Curotto, through a letter written by new counsel it had retained. The demand letter stated it was asserting “two separate claims,” premised on Curotto’s two acts of negligence that precluded Bay Cities from recovering from either of two responsible parties. But the demand letter sought payment of a single amount, based on the work performed by Bay Cities on a construction project. Therefore, Bay Cities made a single “demand for money against the Insured.”
Accordingly, analyzing the main issue in this case without reference to doctrines of pleading, but as a question of contract interpretation, I reach the same result as the majority.
*875II
Although the majority concludes that Bay Cities made a single claim, thus resolving the issue on which review was granted, it goes on to discuss at considerable length whether, assuming that Bay Cities had made two claims, the claims would be “related” within the meaning of the policy. This discussion is not only unnecessary to the disposition of the case, but also misleading, as I shall explain.
The pertinent policy language is this: “ ‘Two or more claims arising out of a single act, error or omission or a series of related acts, errors or omissions shall be treated as a single claim.’ ” (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 866, italics omitted.) The policy does not define the term “related.”
Bay Cities argues that the term “related” is ambiguous because it could have a broad meaning—all acts or omissions related in some way—or a narrow meaning of causally related. Because the term is not defined in the policy, Bay Cities argues it should be interpreted against the drafting party, in conformance with standard rules of insurance contract interpretation. (1 Witkin, Summary of Cal. Law, supra, § 699, p. 632; see AIU Ins. Co. v. Superior Court (1990) 51 Cal.3d 807, 821-822 [274 Cal.Rptr. 820, 799 P.2d 1253]; Universal Underwriters Ins. Co. v. Gewirtz (1971) 5 Cal.3d 246, 250 [95 Cal.Rptr. 617, 486 P.2d 145]; Gray v. Zurich Ins. Co. (1966) 65 Cal.2d 263, 269 [54 Cal.Rptr. 104, 419 P.2d 168].) The majority rejects this argument, saying Bay Cities’ interpretation is “not reasonable.” (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 868.) The majority concludes that “[restricting the word [‘related’] to only causal connections improperly limits the word to less than its general meaning.” (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 873.)
I am unconvinced. There are any number of ways in which two acts giving rise to claims under a malpractice insurance policy might be said to be “related” in the general sense of the term. A law firm that has a single policy may commit, through two lawyers, two acts of malpractice affecting the same client on the same day. These claims could be said to be related in at least three ways: temporally (same day), thematically in one sense (same client), and thematically in another sense (two real estate matters involving boundary disputes). Accordingly, the two claims could reasonably be said to be “related” within the “general meaning” of the term. But it is unlikely, given that the acts of malpractice occurred in two separate matters, that the claims would be considered “related” within the meaning of the policy. Thus, the necessity arises to impose some limiting construction on the policy term “related acts or omissions.”
*876When the language of an insurance policy is ambiguous the courts look to the expectations of a reasonable insured. (American Star Ins. Co. v. Insurance Co. of the West (1991) 232 Cal.App.3d 1320, 1331 [284 Cal.Rptr. 45]; see AIU Ins. Co. v. Superior Court, supra, 51 Cal.3d at p. 822 [stating that to protect an insured’s objectively reasonable expectations, coverage clauses of insurance policies are interpreted broadly].) Here, the context suggests that a reasonable attorney/insured would have thought that under the policy two claims made in the circumstances of this case would be classed as related, but only because the element of damages from each was identical and coextensive. Thus, the majority’s conclusion that the claims are related within the meaning of the policy is correct, but its endorsement of the policy language “related acts, errors or omissions” as inherently unambiguous is not.
Thus, although the majority has reached the correct result in this case, I cannot subscribe to its reasoning.