Revised article: Court of Appeals takes under advisement challenge to $10 million settlement in Renteria v. King

Division 2 of the Washington Court of Appeals on April 29 took under advisement a motion for discretionary review challenging the superior court's approval of a $10,000,000 covenant-judgment settlement in Reuben Renteria v. Michelle King.

Matthew Munson, attorney for the moving party Associated Industries Insurance Company, told the panel the settling parties had not met their burden to show the settlement was reasonable. "Only one of those parties, Mr. Renteria, submitted anything," Munson said, arguing the record contained unauthenticated medical bills and other materials but lacked declarations or other admissible evidence explaining how the $10,000,000 figure was calculated.

Munson also questioned the liability proof, focusing on the testimony of a single eyewitness, James Hunter. Munson said Hunter did not see Ms. King served alcohol or identify the server and that Hunter's observations (for example, that King "kept repeating herself") did not, by themselves, establish apparent intoxication for purposes of a dram-shop claim.

Respondent's counsel defended the superior court's reasonableness finding and said the court had considered the so-called nine Chasse factors used in this context. Counsel told the panel the record included a video of the collision, police reports, a DRE investigation, cell-phone location data and other materials bearing on chronology and liability. The attorney also characterized claimant damages as including an emergency-room bill described in argument as nearly $1,000,000, a lost-wage claim characterized as about $2,500,000, and ongoing full-time care needs; those figures were presented to the court as counsel's estimates.

The parties disputed timing: Munson argued cell records and an expert review showed roughly an hour elapsed between the party's departure from the bar and the crash, which he said undermined using an observation at service to support the settlement; respondent's counsel said the totality of the record and the negotiation history supported the $10,000,000 approval. Counsel also disagreed about whether owner Maria Andre was present at the establishment the night in question; Munson noted responses to requests for admission in which Andre denied being there, while respondent's counsel pointed to police reporting and a detective's deposition indicating Andre was working that night.

Commissioner Aurora Bierce presided over the argument. After hearing both sides, the panel said it would take the motion under consideration and issue a written ruling. The court recessed and moved on to its next case.