[00:00:01] Speaker 03:
Good morning. Thank you, Your Honour. May it please the court. My name is Al Clayton. Honoured to be here from Alaska to speak on behalf of the Sykes.

[00:00:13] Speaker 03:
We are here in a life insurance case, which is perhaps not as challenging as the last the court heard, but is still important to the parties. Diversity jurisdiction, state of Alaska jurisdiction. law is the substantive law.

[00:00:32] Speaker 03:
What I would suggest is that we focus on development in state of Alaska law since the district court made its decision on summary judgment. And specifically, there is the Weaver case, which was a certified question presenting a question about whether a pollution exclusion would be enforced. And what we found was that the Alaska Supreme Court was presented with a question which some of the parties said was settled under Alaska law.

[00:01:12] Speaker 03:
We have an old case.

[00:01:15] Speaker 03:
It had enforced a sudden pollution exclusion. The one party said, there's nothing new here.

[00:01:25] Speaker 03:
In this case, the Wheeler case, the Alaska Supreme Court said, well, no, there really is something new here. We have new facts.

[00:01:35] Speaker 03:
We have a new policy that was not interpreted. And so we are going to carefully review the insurance contract. And we're going to do that from the perspective of the reasonable lay insurance consumer.

[00:01:53] Speaker 03:
In the Wheeler case, the Alaska Supreme Court went through the policy.

[00:01:59] Speaker 03:
It carefully examined the insurance company's position, and it found that that position was a reasonable interpretation of the language of the policy.

[00:02:12] Speaker 03:
But it then said, and we must now consider whether the insured's interpretation is also reasonable.

[00:02:22] Speaker 03:
And it used phrases like they have a hard hill to climb.

[00:02:33] Speaker 03:
The Alaska Supreme Court nevertheless found that the insured's interpretation was also reasonable.

[00:02:42] Speaker 03:
and adopted that interpretation, finding the pollution exclusion was not enforceable on the facts and in the circumstances of that case.

[00:02:54] Speaker 02:
Let me jump in here about the facts of this case. So this case is, I'm not an insurance guy, but...

[00:03:03] Speaker 02:
I mean, in this job, you have a lot of insurance cases. So I just want to make sure I understand how this policy was going to work. So there's a $50,000 effectively deposit made, correct, at the initiation of the, when you sign the contract, you give them $50,000, right?

[00:03:18] Speaker 03:
Yes.

[00:03:19] Speaker 02:
Okay.

[00:03:19] Speaker 03:
Well, a deposit or a premium?

[00:03:21] Speaker 02:
Right. A $50,000 of a premium is paid. And I guess the idea with this policy, the way it would work from the insurance company's perspective, how they make money on it, is that if we assume a 7% interest rate forever or for a long period of time, eventually the insurance company will make money on that. But if the interest rates go below 7%, then...

[00:03:50] Speaker 02:
they're not going to make money on this policy. Is that fair?

[00:03:53] Speaker 03:
It may be fair, but I would suggest that none of that mathematics or what the insurance company is going to do with the money has anything to do with the expectation.

[00:04:04] Speaker 02:
Oh, sure, sure, sure. I'm just trying to understand the mechanics of how this was supposed to work, because if I can understand the mechanics of how it's supposed to work, then I have a better sense of kind of what was going on here. So from a business, and I'm asking the opposing counsel the same question, so from a business perspective, the idea was We set, you know, it's like all insurance policies, right? They pay the money, and you float the rate. You play the rates, and the hope is that the rates will stay higher. Okay. So help me understand, and again, no trick questions here. There's this terminology in the policy, maximum total premium.

[00:04:38] Speaker 02:
And your take is that that meant $50,000, and that was it.

[00:04:44] Speaker 03:
Correct.

[00:04:45] Speaker 02:
And that was the deal that the party struck.

[00:04:47] Speaker 03:
Correct. and that was the expectation based upon the application as well, that showed that the $50,000 was going to buy a particular amount of insurance and that was going to be paid through age 95.

[00:05:02] Speaker 02:
And that was the gamble that the insurance company would take would be if the clients were to pass away soon, they would make money on it. I mean, so they passed away.

[00:05:12] Speaker 02:
Okay, I see there. So here's my follow-up question to that, is that the district court granted summary judgment. I know that's not what you wanted, but that's what happened. If we were to give you the relief you're seeking today and the case were to go to trial, what are the tribal issues of fact still open right now?

[00:05:32] Speaker 03:
Well, if the court were to interpret the policy as we suggest it must, because there is a reasonable basis for the conclusion that no further premiums would be expected, the court would remand the case. There would be a trial on the rest of the bad faith issues, which would include such things as could any...

[00:05:55] Speaker 03:
was it a misrepresentation back at the beginning of the contracting for an insurance company to make this gamble and then hide within boilerplate language this one sentence that said, hey, if the insurance company miscalculates, we're going to come back and we're going to demand some additional premium from you. And then what? Well, At the time of contracting, no human, no person, not the insurance company, laid out in any part of the contract what amount of premium could be paid.

[00:06:38] Speaker 03:
That's part of the problem. This one sentence we would submit is unenforceable because it does not give the parties any of the particular material terms for additional premium payments.

[00:06:50] Speaker 00:
Council, I just want to clarify something. There's, I think, a dispute of fact about whether the illustration became part of the insurance contract. And the answer to that question, could that affect whether the insured's interpretation is reasonable or not?

[00:07:18] Speaker 03:
I think that you're correct that that is a material issue of disputed fact. I think if you go to the excerpt, ER 193 begins the contract that the insured understood existed, and it ends with the application. And it has an entire contract clause, and that entire contract clause does not refer to illustrations. So we would submit that the illustration

[00:07:46] Speaker 01:
is that is part of the record is not a part of the contract there's a dispute about that and in theory it's not as i recall the illustration itself is not signed but something that they reviewed along with the illustration is signed so maybe there'd be a dispute about whether or not the illustration was part of the thing that they signed it it has to do with timing i think your honor there is a signed illustration it is dated after the issuance of the policy and so

[00:08:16] Speaker 03:
from the reasonable insured's perspective, we would submit that that's kind of the beat and switch.

[00:08:22] Speaker 03:
Get us to sign up, hide the immeasurable premium, and then give us an illustration. The illustration still does not critically disclose any sort of a premium payment that could be anticipated in the future. This is the problem. 20 years after the insureds parted with their maximum total premium of $50,000.

[00:08:46] Speaker 00:
Sorry, I guess what I want to know is, is that a dispute of fact that could affect the legal question about whether the plaintiff's or the insured's interpretation is reasonable? Or would you prefer to say, even assuming plaintiffs signed it as a matter of law, it did not become part of the contract. Do you understand the difference? What is your position?

[00:09:17] Speaker 03:
Our position is the illustration is not a part of the contract.

[00:09:22] Speaker 00:
As a matter of fact or as a matter of law?

[00:09:25] Speaker 03:
As a matter of fact and law, the illustration did not exist at the time of the signing of the contract, of the issuance of the contract, and therefore should not be considered to be part of the contract.

[00:09:40] Speaker 03:
The district court took the illustration into account as part of relevant extrinsic evidence, right?

[00:09:48] Speaker 00:
So I guess I want to just make sure I really understand your position. Can you say, even assuming plaintiffs received it and signed it on the date shown of the signature, that as a matter of Alaska law, that is not, part of the insurance contract and should not have any bearing on what their reasonable expectation was under the contract.

[00:10:14] Speaker 03:
Precisely, yes. And the way to get there, I would suggest, is set aside the three briefs with all of our narrative and our description of what the contract says. Start fresh with the actual contract. Read the

[00:10:31] Speaker 01:
table of contents which telegraphs what important parts are, look for something in the... I think their argument would be that, yeah, they would not dispute that, I think, but assuming they didn't dispute that, then they would say a month later, we offer this illustration, and you amended it, and they signed it, so they amended the contract to add this. So their argument might be that even if it started as a one payment, $50,000, that's all you agreed to something else a month later.

[00:11:04] Speaker 01:
And are there any factual disputes that relate to that, or is that something that we could just decide on the law?

[00:11:11] Speaker 03:
I think you can still decide, accept that. Accept that the illustration exists. It was an amendment to the contract.

[00:11:21] Speaker 01:
To the contract, okay. So if we accept that, then why do you still win?

[00:11:24] Speaker 03:
Well, because when you start fresh, as I've suggested, and you look at the the premium, the policy specifications, which are clear and we would say unambiguous, and then you look at the structure of the contract as the Wheeler case did.

[00:11:42] Speaker 01:
No, no, the problem is with that argument is, so you're saying they entered into one type of contract, but effectively what they did is one month later they bought a different, they completely changed their insurance contract. So why does it matter what was in the original one if we assume As a matter of law, they amended it to turn it into what the insurance company now says it is.

[00:12:04] Speaker 03:
Because when you read even that additional information in the light that the Alaska Supreme Court requires, and you find the buried in boilerplate 25, I'd invite you to look at the structure and the font, and the bottom line is, an insurance consumer would not understand, would not comprehend, and would not fathom that an additional... Let me ask you.

[00:12:39] Speaker 01:
You're running out of time. I want to make sure. In your brief on page 29, you had said that they had the undisputed deposition testimony by Ms. Sykes, Lila Sykes. that, quote, advised the Sykes at the time of purchase that the agent, that their insurance agent, had advised the Sykes at the time of purchase that the policy premium was a one-time single payment of $50,000. And you cited the ER 37, 104, and 110.

[00:13:07] Speaker 01:
My clerk could not find that in the record.

[00:13:11] Speaker 01:
And so we couldn't find anywhere in the record where Ms. Sykes had, during her deposition testimony, said what you said she said in your opening brief on page 29.

[00:13:21] Speaker 01:
So I'm putting you on the spot here, so I don't expect you. But if that is in the record, that would be nice to know because that would be a factual dispute related to the, that would be extrinsic evidence related to the formation of the contract, but it doesn't look to me like that's in the record.

[00:13:35] Speaker 03:
I'll be happy to look for that in the record and submit something. And I do see that I've got one and a half minutes.

[00:13:40] Speaker 02:
Do you want to reserve? Yes, please. Very well.

[00:13:44] Speaker 02:
We'll go one and a half.

[00:14:06] Speaker 04:
Good morning. Franz Hardy on behalf of Appalie, Transamerica Life Insurance Company, the successor in interest to Baker's United Life Assurance Company. May it please this court.

[00:14:20] Speaker 04:
This court should affirm the district court's entry of summary judgment. The insurance policy allows for the flexible payment of premiums, not the singular or sole payment of one premium.

[00:14:35] Speaker 04:
In exchange for an initial premium of a maximum total of $50,000, Bankers United guaranteed that the policy would remain in force for at least 24 years from 1993 to 2017. And even after 2017, no premiums were owed so long as the value of the policy exceeded the monthly cost of insurance.

[00:15:03] Speaker 04:
And over the years, if the insured chose to insure a longer in-force period, they needed to pay additional annual premiums not to exceed the maximum annual premium amount per year. Or alternatively, they would have to pay a calculated premium upon notice of a potential lap during the grace period.

[00:15:30] Speaker 04:
Ultimately...

[00:15:34] Speaker 01:
Under premiums on ER-199, it talks about a maximum single premium, but nowhere does it actually define what a maximum single premium. It does not talk on that page about a maximum total premium, but the maximum total premium is laid out earlier on 195.

[00:15:56] Speaker 01:
Was one supposed to be single? Were they both supposed to be single? Were they both supposed to be total? It seems like something happened here. What happened?

[00:16:03] Speaker 04:
Yes, Your Honor. As I've analyzed the policy, maximum single premium is the maximum total premium.

[00:16:11] Speaker 01:
Yeah, so if it said on 195 maximum single premium, right, and that would kind of make it all consistent, then I feel like your argument would be very strong, you know, much stronger. Let's put it much stronger. The problem is it may be a mistake, but it says maximum total premium on this line, which is not defined anywhere, but it says it up front on the part you think you'd look at, and it says $50,000.

[00:16:32] Speaker 01:
So even assuming that's a mistake of sorts, it isn't.

[00:16:37] Speaker 01:
If we look at the application and it says, you know, at the end of the, and it is part of the policy, and it says number of years to be paid, one scheduled premium, 50,000, scheduled modal premium, paid a page through 95.

[00:16:55] Speaker 01:
So it says all that, and then you go and it says total maximum premium, if I'm getting the words right, maximum total premium, And you ignore the thing that was signed a month later. You assume that they didn't have that, which I think the district court sued. It does seem to me that a person could fairly easily think that they were going to pay $50,000 one time, and then it's a lot harder if you actually include the – maybe not a lot harder, but your argument is stronger if you include the schedule, the table.

[00:17:31] Speaker 01:
But the table wasn't – so – You know, putting aside for a second whether or not the table was added to the contract and how that might affect things, if you acknowledge that seems to be a mistake, why does that mistake not inure to their benefit?

[00:17:50] Speaker 04:
A few different reasons, Your Honor, because under the policy, under premiums where you were alluding to, if you reference that, if you read it in context, what it's describing is is the maximum amounts of the initial premium and annual premiums. You have to read that as the total of the premiums paid in all policy years.

[00:18:19] Speaker 01:
The very last line says, maximum premium amounts are shown on page three. This is on ER 199. I've got a long paragraph there, and then it says, the maximum premium amounts are shown on page three. And if you were to turn back to page three, it says, maximum total premium, which in theory would be a maximum premium amount, is $50,000. If I was to read just that, it seems to me I would think, okay, I'm going to maximum total. One of the maximum premiums is the maximum total that I'll ever have to pay, and I'm paying that up front.

[00:18:51] Speaker 04:
That would not be a reasonable expectation from the insured's perspective, Your Honor, because if you read the premium section, the one you were just referencing, what that provision talks about are the total premiums over the total life of the policy. The initial premium, the $50,000, and then the annual premiums that are $5,184. The way you come up with the total premium or the maximum premium, it's talking about the total over the lifetime of the policy, not a single premium.

[00:19:29] Speaker 04:
And you have to read that provision in the context of the policy specification.

[00:19:35] Speaker 00:
Council, if we were talking about how a bunch of lawyers would actually interpret this contract read as a whole, but we're asking how would a reasonable layperson understand this policy and we're not saying that your interpretation we can find your interpretation is entirely reasonable maybe even ultimately at the end of the day legally correct if we apply all the normal rules that lawyers apply but that's not really the question the standard we're applying here correct we're asking just how would a lay person when they applied and signed up for this policy and saw the words maximum total premium after applying for something where they check the box, single payment, what would they understand?

[00:20:28] Speaker 04:
For a few different reasons, the only objective reasonable interpretation is our interpretation, one of which is the illustration. The illustration is an important part of this. You cannot read it. in isolation just the policy, even though the policy describes additional premiums besides the initial premium of $50,000.

[00:20:52] Speaker 01:
I understand why you're going to the illustration, and I don't want to hijack, but can we start earlier than that? Let's just start at the application, because that is part of the, nobody contests, including you guys, that that is part of the contract. The illustration, not sure about. Is there anything in the application itself, just putting aside the actual rest of the policy and the, that you would point to that would indicate to a reasonable person that this is a, that you would have to pay more than $50,000.

[00:21:22] Speaker 04:
Well, Your Honor, you can't read the output.

[00:21:25] Speaker 01:
No, no, I'm trying to go sequentially. Because I'm trying to put myself in the shoes of the layperson, right? And so if I was the person signing up for insurance and I had a discussion with the agent and I said, I want to buy insurance, what do you got? I got something, pay $50,000 once and you get 100 and whatever or 200, whatever.

[00:21:42] Speaker 01:
It seems to me that the application, it's alone, is consistent with that. But do you disagree that if you just look at the application that there's nothing in there that would tell you that there's going to be additional premiums?

[00:21:56] Speaker 04:
I feel like that's a very difficult question because you can't read an application without the context of the policy itself. And you have to read those in conjunction. And even to apply it further to Judge Sung's question, you have to read it in conjunction with the illustration. That's how this policy works. The illustration, whether you consider it part of the policy or extrinsic evidence under Alaska law, you can review it, you must review it together under the Alaska Supreme Court decision in Downing.

[00:22:31] Speaker 01:
Let me ask you about the extrinsic.

[00:22:34] Speaker 01:
If it's part of the policy, that seems a hard question. But the extrinsic evidence of just that, we showed this to her a, A month later, and she signed it.

[00:22:45] Speaker 01:
Again, it's asking a lot to think that your ordinary non-lawyer, non-insurance person would, let's assume for a second that she thought at the time of applying and the time of signing this contract, so a month before she sees the, and that she never saw an illustration, that she thought it was a $50,000 one-time payment period.

[00:23:09] Speaker 01:
And then she gets the illustration and she signs it. And I understand your argument that, no, if you look at it, you'll see that it goes to this one point and then it shows that you, and if you read that, the literally fine print on there.

[00:23:23] Speaker 01:
And your argument is that, I think your argument as far as extrinsic evidence argument is, that evinces that she had to have known at the time when she signed it a month earlier that, but isn't it just as plausible that she just got handed something by her agent and signed it?

[00:23:43] Speaker 04:
That's not the facts and evidence. I think what's important about the illustration, even the fact that it comes after the policy issue date, is it gave them the opportunity to say, wait a second, I didn't sign up for that. This illustration is inconsistent with how I read the application or the policy. But she had the opportunity, along with her husband, signed it, acknowledged that she understood it, and it had been explained to her.

[00:24:14] Speaker 04:
And the illustration demonstrates that based upon the $50,000, if that was the only premium that they would pay, that the guarantee by the insurance company would be that the policy would be in force from – the time they signed it in 1993 to 2017. So that's critical that we read everything in conjunction. That's what the downing case from the Alaska Supreme Court requires. The extrinsic evidence, the argument by the insureds is, well, it's not relevant extrinsic evidence because it's after the fact.

[00:24:54] Speaker 04:
Well, it's very important that it is after the fact because it gives that opportunity.

[00:25:02] Speaker 01:
For me, my intuition is that it makes quite a bit of difference whether it's just extrinsic evidence or whether it's actually modified the contract. Because if she had signed up for a $50,000 one-time payment, but then a month later she amended her contract to say after 24 years or 28, whatever it was, you may have to make more payments.

[00:25:25] Speaker 01:
Can we ask you the question we asked your colleague on our side earlier? Is that a factual question as to whether or not it modified the contract? Is that a purely legal question? Are there facts that would need to be decided for that?

[00:25:38] Speaker 04:
No, it's not a factual dispute. And the district court gave the benefit of the doubt that the application, or excuse me, the illustration was not part of the policy. But it doesn't matter under Alaska law. The The court can't... It does matter?

[00:25:56] Speaker 01:
It does not matter because... Let's assume we thought it did matter under Alaska law. In a sense of if it was... Then I'm trying to figure out, if you assume for a second, that if it modified the contract, that that does matter to me, then what I'm trying to figure out is that a purely legal issue that then I would go on and decide whether or not it modified the contract or is that something that needs to go back to the district court?

[00:26:21] Speaker 04:
It'd be a purely legal issue if You believe that it modified the contract to look at the illustration, and it demonstrates that for a $50,000 premium, the guarantee is only through 2017.

[00:26:37] Speaker 01:
You apply that, Your Honor, to the policy terms, and when the... What I'm asking is, is there factual questions that would affect the inquiry as to whether or not it did actually amend the contract or not? No. So what is under Alaska law? What does that question of whether it amended the contract, what does that turn on?

[00:27:05] Speaker 04:
I would say it doesn't matter. Because if it did, then you can interpret the policy and the illustration together. If it does not, under Alaska law, you can consider extrinsic evidence beyond the policy. And that's what this court did. So that Your question, Your Honor, does not prevent this court from affirming summary judgment on undisputed facts. There's no factual issue one way or the other of whether the illustration amended the policy.

[00:27:39] Speaker 02:
If I could just get back to the mechanics of how this policy worked. So I understand that your position is that there was a grace period. They didn't pay during the grace period, so the policy is effectively canceled.

[00:27:51] Speaker 02:
How much money were we talking about that they – because I'm also trying to figure out if this case were to go back, and I'm not saying it will, but if it were, what really is the dispute over? Is it over that they pay nothing or that they have the opportunity to pay the delta?

[00:28:07] Speaker 04:
That's exactly the question you asked to my colleague.

[00:28:12] Speaker 04:
they would have to pay the premium in order to reinstate the policy and continue the policy for it to continue. Now, I understand the insureds are now passed away, but they would owe that amount in order for the policy to continue.

[00:28:30] Speaker 01:
By the premium, I assume you're saying the premium that the insurance company said that they owed, but that seems flatly inconsistent with the contract, because the contract has a maximum annual premium. It actually is laid out, I think, on On page three.

[00:28:42] Speaker 02:
Yeah, the $5,100.

[00:28:43] Speaker 01:
Yeah, and you wanted, like, car payment or buying car-size amounts of money. And so that can't seem right to me. So my initial instinct is that seems wrong. You think it's right?

[00:28:59] Speaker 04:
It is right, Your Honor.

[00:29:00] Speaker 01:
So what do we do with the, it says, maximum annual premium, $5,184. That was the amount the insureds could pay every year after...

[00:29:13] Speaker 04:
1993 in addition to their initial premium. That would keep the value of the policy high. In essence, if they only place $50,000 down, they were essentially... If I understand your argument now, I have to say I'm not the dumbest person ever.

[00:29:35] Speaker 01:
That did not occur to me until you just said that. I suppose you could take the position after a certain point you can start pouring money in there and that way when you're short by $30,000, you've paid six times that.

[00:29:49] Speaker 01:
Wow. All I can say is like an ordinary layperson, understanding that's what this contract is saying, seems, especially since, as I recall, the thing that you hang your hat on in grace period, it doesn't say anything about prepaying for six years in order to have enough in there to pay for your being short. It talks about A premium will be required if on the last day of the policy month the policy value is less than the deduction schedule we made.

[00:30:16] Speaker 04:
That's right. So that's the way this policy works. There's a value in the policy. You can add value to the policy over the life of the policy. What's that amount? It's a maximum of $5,184. That's how the policy works over the years and decades it's enforced. If you do not add more policy value... and the value goes down to an amount where the cost of insurance exceeds it, you're going to owe additional premiums within a grace period or it will lapse.

[00:30:50] Speaker 01:
You can't pay more than $51,000. The contract says you can't. You both agreed that you can't pay more. So I think the answer would be you're just screwed if you're the injury because you owe $20-some thousand, but you're only allowed to accept $51,000 because nobody was thinking ahead to pay for six years. So you're just screwed. There's no way to actually keep it going under your interpretation.

[00:31:10] Speaker 04:
There's two ways, Your Honor. I know I'm out of time, but to answer your question, over the life of the policy, you can add the maximum annual premium amount.

[00:31:20] Speaker 04:
If you reach this grace period notice, then you will owe a payment equal to at least two monthly deductions in order to get it out of the grace period. However, you're going to have to continue to pay premiums in the future in order to keep the policy in force. That's how this policy operates.

[00:31:42] Speaker 04:
Thank you, Your Honor. We would ask that this court affirm summary judgment as entered by the district court. Thank you.

[00:31:49] Speaker 02:
Thank you, counsel.

[00:32:04] Speaker 03:
Thank you. A couple of quick things.

[00:32:06] Speaker 03:
We do not agree, let us be clear, that the illustration was a part of the contract. So what I said was if you consider the illustration, you can still find that our interpretation is reasonable. If you look at the illustration, there's a long column of premium payments, and they're all zero.

[00:32:28] Speaker 03:
I want to speak briefly about downing, which was an important downing versus country life, which is an important part of the district court's analysis.

[00:32:37] Speaker 03:
The court says if you look carefully and if you read carefully, you can figure out that the maximum benefit payable in the event of a life is X amount of dollars.

[00:32:54] Speaker 03:
We have here a dispute about whether reading carefully an insured could discern whether an additional premium could be payable. And I'd suggest that as you look through the contract and you read it freshly, not in the briefs, but as it's- We're out of time.

[00:33:16] Speaker 01:
Can I ask the question that Judge Owens asked to your colleague, which is, if we were to agree with you- What is the remedy here, I guess? Does the successors get the $231,000? What happens when this goes back?

[00:33:34] Speaker 03:
First of all, no additional premium should be payable. The life insurance should remain in place. It should not have lapsed. That life insurance benefit should be paid, and then a trial should proceed on the other causes of action the bad faith type stuff exactly bad faith yes insurance bad faith in the handling of the claim was the insurance company honest did they make representations that were correct were they timely at one point they wrote and said this There would be factual disputes about that stuff.

[00:34:13] Speaker 02:
Yes, absolutely. If I could just jump in real quick. Look, unfortunately, the people who bought this policy, they passed away.

[00:34:21] Speaker 02:
And if you were to win...

[00:34:25] Speaker 02:
Unfortunately, this case is going to go on. This is federal litigation. These things take a long time, as we know. I'm curious what, if any, mediation efforts you guys have made. You guys both seem like reasonable guys. Is there any way you guys could sit around and figure something out just to get this case over with? Look, I know obviously there's a delta between what you guys want over with. I'm curious what you guys would think about if we set you up with our mediation office.

[00:34:50] Speaker 03:
Well, certainly there was a mediation, and it did fail. and it had to do with this on-off switch. If the insurance company's interpretation of the policy is correct, well, we don't have a case. If our interpretation of the case is correct, Well, we say they acted very badly. And insurance companies in Alaska who act badly and do not provide the benefit that is due the insured are subject to emotional distress damages, all of the punitive damages, all of those things.

[00:35:26] Speaker 03:
So there is a range of, there's a value of the case.

[00:35:31] Speaker 01:
And the answer to Judge Owen's question is, even if they're willing to pay you $231,000 right now, Because you can get a bazillion dollars in Alaska for that. You wouldn't necessarily be willing to settle for that now if you thought you might win in front of us.

[00:35:49] Speaker 03:
I would say that the ruling of this court on whether or not summary judgment is correct would substantially shape the expectations of the process.

[00:35:59] Speaker 02:
I understand. All right.

[00:36:02] Speaker 02:
All right, thank you. Thank you both for your briefing and your argument in this case. People should have stayed, actually. It wasn't more interesting than you would have thought. So thank you for your argument and your briefing. This matter is submitted.