Jaramillo v. Providence Washington Insurance

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• holding punishment and deterrence not accomplished by allowing recovery against estate of tortfeasor
• stating that the general principle that ambiguities in an insurance policy are construed against the insurer applies to established insureds but not to create coverage for a third party who has not paid for insurance or is not an acknowledged family member
• remanding case for trial court to consider whether ambiguity existed in defining who was class-one insured by admitting extrinsic evidence of circumstances under which the parties contracted and purpose of contract
• refusing to allow punitive damages against estate of deceased tortfeasor because death of tort-feasor defeats the central purpose of awarding such damages, which is to punish the tortfeasor and deter him or her from repeating the wrongful act
• determining trial court “may have limited its review [of whether an ambiguity existed] to the ‘four corners’ of the agreement” and stating that “on remand the court may allow extrinsic evidence and reconsider whether an ambiguity exists”
• extrinsic evidence can be considered in determining whether an ambiguity exists in an insurance policy

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).