TORT LAW
Matthew Naiman
In McCormick v. Chippewa, Inc., the supreme court held that the superior court did not abuse its discretion when it limited discovery to documents created in the time period surrounding the settlement agreement in question. In 2007, McCormick was injured while working on a vessel owned by Chippewa, Inc. After learning of Chippewa’s policy limit of $500,000 per occurrence less the cost of any investigation or defense, McCormick offered to settle in exchange for policy limits. McCormick’s settlement offer detailed two accidents, and the parties ultimately came to an agreement for policy limits. However, after settlement, the parties came to disagree about whether Chippewa was to pay the policy limit for a single accident or multiple accidents. McCormick then initiated a lawsuit for enforcement of the settlement as inclusive of multiple accidents. Chippewa moved for the enforcement of the settlement as inclusive of a single accident, and the court converted this motion to one for summary judgment. The lower court granted summary judgment. On appeal, the supreme court reversed to allow discovery. Discovery included Chippewa’s correspondence with counsel and internal insurance documents up until the time of trial. McCormick moved to extend discovery to include documents dating after the initiation of his lawsuit, which the court denied. Following summary judgment against him, McCormick argued that the superior court abused its discretion by denying his request to expand discovery. The supreme court affirmed the superior court’s decision. The supreme court reasoned that it instructed the superior court to give effect to the intent of the settlement through the consideration of circumstances at the time of settlement negotiation. Because Chippewa provided its relevant documents dating to the striking of the settlement agreement and the time period prior to the initiation of litigation, the superior court did not abuse its discretion in limiting discovery. The supreme court remanded the case for trial to resolve genuine issues of material fact. However, the supreme court affirmed the lower court’s discretion to limit discovery to the temporal period surrounding the settlement agreement in question.
