Appellate Court wraps up hotly-disputed Gaylord negligence trial against insurance agent

In 2004, Zaremba Equipment, Inc., sued its insurance company and insurance agent, claiming they had been negligent and had also misprepresented the value of insurance coverage that the agent, Patrick Musall, recommended buying.  Zaremba had experienced a fire in 2003 and had experienced losses far in excess of their insurance coverage for replacement of the building and contents.

The agent argued that rulings by the Republican majority of the Supreme Court established that he owed no duty to the insured, that his only duty was to "take orders" for the company, and that Zaremba's failure to read its policy pre-empted any claim that Zaremba might have.  In a prior appeal, the higher court concluded that the agent might owe a duty to Zaremba based on his allegedly negligent analysis of the building's value and his allegedly negligent advice about "full coverage."

The case was finally tried in a contentious, uncivil atmosphere with mutual claims of falsehood or misbehavior.  The jury ultimately found that the agent did not commit fraud, but that he was negligent in fulfilling the duties he had assumed to the insured; it concluded that Zaremba was also negligent in failing to read the policy, and it awarded damages that were ultimately computed to be slightly over $1.2 million dollars. The trial judge rejected the Defendants' arguments that the verdict was improper or a product of attorney misconduct and the Defendants appealed a second time.