Court Opinion

ID: 9545396
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 17:11:17.871096+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:14:40.793699
License: Public Domain

ZIMMERMAN, Justice,
concurring:
I concur in the general statement of the law in Justice Stewart’s opinion and in the result, remanding the matter to the trial court for further exploration of whether the agreement to arbitrate was part of a larger agreement that was partially performed to settle all the claims of the Jenkins. However, I do not agree with the tone of the majority opinion insofar as it suggests that there is some extraordinary hurdle that plaintiffs must overcome before they can show that they are entitled either to rescission of the entire settlement agreement or to its specific enforcement. In my view, no extraordinary proof standards apply here, nor is or should the law be in any way hostile to the enforcement of oral arbitration agreements made as part of a larger oral contract. The days of the law’s and the legal establishment’s hostility to resolving disputes in any other forum should be long past. The legislature may have required a writing for an arbitration agreement to be enforceable standing alone, but that requirement in no way altered the general legal rules about oral agreements and executory contracts. The standards applicable here are the same as in any run of the mill oral contract case.
On the facts, it bears noting that the record regarding the parties’ agreement is not quite so sparse as the majority opinion might lead one to believe. The only writing memorializing the agreement between the parties concerning all the claims, including those of the children which were settled and approved by Judge Hanson, is the letter of March 5th. And that letter contains a statement of the terms of the children’s settlement, terms upon which the claim was actually settled, and a statement that “we have agreed to arbitrate Julie Jenkins’ claim.” In addition, the insurance company, both before the trial court and before this court, did not seriously contend that the adjuster did not agree to arbitrate the mother’s claim. Finally, there remains the fact that the insurance company did not try to disavow arbitration of the mother’s claim until after Judge Hanson had actually settled and dismissed the children’s claims that one can assume had some strong sympathetic potential in the event of a jury trial. On these facts, there is ample evidence from which a finder of fact could conclude that there was an agreement to arbitrate as part of the overall disposition of the family’s claims.1

. I note Justice Russon’s concerns about the insurance company binding an insured to arbitration without the insured's consent, with the potential of exposure beyond the policy limits. I do not view this case on its facts as addressing that question. Only if the arbitrated settlement exceeded the policy limits would the insured have occasion to be concerned about whether the insurer, in agreeing to arbitration, had acted inconsistent with its contractual obligations and rights.