Correction and clarification

Thanks to AEI's Ted Frank and other readers for keeping me on my toes. A correction to yesterday's post about the Salazar case in Nebraska. I wrongly reported that the Nebraska Supreme Court had issued its decision in the case in September. In fact, the court handed down the decision about the insurance coverage in July 2005. (The court issued an earlier ruling upholding the trial court's decision in 2003.) I apologize for the error.

Ted and others are also right in some of their criticism of my interpretation of the decision, in the sense that the county's liability insurance provided excess coverage for multiple $1 million claims, rather than single claims exceeding $1 million. However, I do think that the plaintiff's lawyers in this case had a potentially credible argument that there was a contractual issue involved outside of the state's damage cap. The lawyers argued that Salazar, the plaintiff, was the intended beneficiary of the county's insurance policy, and thus was entitled to claim benefits available regardless of the state cap. (The trial court judge in this case assessed his damages at $7 million.) They argued in the appeal that the insurance company had offered $50,000 more than the $1 million cap to settle the case before trial, as evidence that the excess policy benefits were available to their client. Obviously the court disagreed, as do many of you, dear readers. 

In any event, I apologize for the errors of my own, and appreciate everyone who took the time to correct them, and to join the discussion of what I think is a pretty interesting case regardless of how you feel about its merits.