The January 14, 2009 East Bay Claims luncheon meeting included a crowd of nearly 100 people, as Bill Staples, of Archer Norris, presented the annual case law review.
Past East Bay Adjusters President Steve Anderson, now with Sams & Associates.
John Vigallon of Kellco-Macs announced a half day seminar he is producing on dealing with gangs and meth labs.
New owner of Pipe Pros, Randall Chard, with now previous owner Randy Agnetti.
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Perennial East Bay Adjusters' Case Law Review Presenter makes his return
By Bryan Harrison
Association News Network, Inc.
Kicking off the new year of 2009 was very reminiscent of similar events about a decade or so ago, for those of us who've been around this industry and association that long. Prior to the East Bay Adjusters Association and the Mt. Diablo Property Association merging in 2001, the EBAA featured a January Case Law Review that typically drew one of the largest crowds of the year. The event was held at Zio Fraedo's - albeit in the pre-fire building - in Pleasant Hill. The attorney who returned year after year to bring the highlights of claims-related case law decisions to the group? None other than Bill Staples.
Back in that time, Bill was a partner with the local defense firm Capps, Staples, et al. Now a partner with the professional law corporation of Archer Norris, Bill agreed to bring his depth of knowledge back to the EBCA, creating a bit of a "Back to the Future" affect.
In fact, whether due to Bill's presence, or maybe in part representative of the state of the industry, there were numerous faces in the crowd not often seen for some time who were regulars back in those years. Past EBAA President Steve Anderson, for one - though Steve has made occasional appearances in more recent times. It was good to see Colleen Abney, of NovaPro Risk Solutions, and Debi Walling, of Allied Insurance, and others.
Bill's presentation was solid as ever. "There actually were some decisions rendered this past year out of common sense," he stated. His presentation included a hand-out, so he was able to get through the stories and outcomes without having to focus too much on the citations, sticking more to the meat of the matters.
One of the cases that apparently caused the most uproar, at least for a time, last year was Crawford vs. Weatherford. The Supreme Court in this case held that the duty to defend exists, which Bill said "led to a lot of seminars and great anguish for a short time." Ultimately, though, he said that the law in question already exists, as 2778 of the civil code states that the "duty to defend is immediate". "A big to-do about nothing is what it turned out to be," he stated.
Cases questioning the Assumption of the Risk doctrine were pretty clearly applied, and one case involving the Privette Doctrine of peculiar risk came up.
We learned that it is still safe to be polite in the world. A case where a driver was sued for waving another driver on, who then made the turn and ran into a motorcycle, was not deemed the fault of the driver who waved the other on. Look both ways before crossing!
Bill shared with the crowd that it was actually 1981 when he first did the case law review for East Bay Adjusters Association. He was the regular January speaker from 1981 through 1996. "I think I may have missed only two years," he said.
East Bay Claims was clearly happy about his return. |
