Court Opinion

ID: 9796569
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 04:00:15.522953+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:50:37.773280
License: Public Domain

BERCH, Judge,
concurring.
¶ 28 The bright-line test that we apply today has the virtue of ease of application. I think, though, that in an appropriate case— one in which a defendant clearly concedes liability and participates in settlement — the application of Arizona’s net benefit or totality of the circumstances tests might compel a different result when a plaintiff receives less following trial than she has already received through settlement. See Ayala v. Olaiz, 161 Ariz. 129, 132, 776 P.2d 807, 810 (App.1989) (net judgment rule); Nataros v. Fine Arts Gallery of Scottsdale, 126 Ariz. 44, 49, 612 P.2d 500, 505 (App.1980) (totality of circumstances test). But the record in this case and the obligation to defer to the trial judge, see Sanborn v. Brooker & Wake Prop. Mgmt., Inc., 178 Ariz. 425, 430, 874 P.2d 982, 987 (App.1994), require the result we reach here today.