2016-01-26-minutes-hr-study-session

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WSAC AMICUS CURAIE BRIEF REQUEST FORM 1. Case name and Supreme Court number. Washington Counties Risk Pool v. Clark County, Supreme Court No. 91154-1. 2. Case history and current status. This case is before the Supreme Court on direct discretionary review from Cowlitz County Superior Court. The petitioners are Clark County, its former detective Donald Slagle, and their assignees Larry Davis and Alan Northrop. The respondents are the Washington Counties Risk Pool, its reinsurer and excess insurer Lexington Insurance Co. and its parent, the American Insurance Group, and its reinsurer ACE American Insurance Company. The Washington Counties Risk Pool presently consists of 26 Washington counties who have exercised their statutory right to cooperatively self -insure under a statute that specifically excludes governmental joint self-insurance pools from the definition of an "insurer" under the Insurance Code. RCW 48.01.050. See RCW ch. 48.62.011 (statute intended to "grant local government entities maximum flexibility in self-insuring"). WCRP's foundational Interlocal Agreement between member counties specifically precludes a member county from assigning "any right, claim or interest it may have under this Agreement." Clark County approved the Interlocal Agreement and joined WCRP in 2002. In 2012, Clark County sought a defense and indemnity of claims of Davis and Northrop, who sued Clark County and former sheriff's detective Slagle for civil rights violations, claiming that they had been falsely arrested, convicted and imprisoned on charges of rape in 1993• WCRP denied the County's tender on the ground that Davis and Northrop's allegations of wrongful conduct in 1993 failed to allege an "occurrence" under WCRP's joint self-insurance policy after 2002, when Clark County first joined WCRP. Clark County and its detective then entered into a settlement with Davis and Northrop, stipulating to entry of a $34.5 million judgment, which was partially satisfied by Clark County's cash payment of $10.5 million, and an assignment that authorized Davis and Northrop to assert the County's and detective's purported claims as insureds against WCRP as an insurer. The trial court held that the Washington Counties Risk Pool is not subject to the liabilities, statutory and common law remedies applicable to commercial insurance companies, that WCRP had no duty to defend the claims because they all occurred in 1993, and that the assignment by the County and its former employee, who the County defended and indemnified under RCW 4.96.041, was void as expressly prohibited by the Interlocal Agreement. It certified its order under RAP 2.3(b)(4) and the Supreme Court accepted discretionary review=. WSAC Board of Director's Meeting February 3, 2016 Page 17 of 80