Calhouns Can(n)ons

E-Waste Drive, SLOHS, Jan 10 & 11

The following email was sent by a friend. Great opportunity to clean house for the new year.

Are you replacing your old TV with a new HDTV this holiday season? Do you need to dispose of the old one, or of any other e-waste cluttering up your garage? Just in time, San Luis Obispo High School Tech Club is having an e-waste recycling drive on Saturday January 10 and Sunday January 11 from 10:00 AM until 4:00 PM. Just bring your electronics to the parking lot by the football field at SLOHS. We will happily unload it for you. This is totally FREE for you.E-waste is our electronic waste, televisions, computers, radios, copiers, the things we generate with our modern lives. If dumped in a landfill, the lead and other heavy metals will leach out into our environment as the e-waste decomposes. It is important to recycle your e-waste with a reputable company. Even better, every item you drop off for recycling helps out the Tech Club and the robotics team. So get out those old items that you don't want to pay to have picked up, and the other electronics they don't take in the trash, and bring them by on the 10th or 11th.ELECTRONIC ITEMS ACCEPTEDTelevisions - Monitors - Computers - Computer ComponentsFax Machines - Printers - Copiers - Toner Cartridges (but just send those to Tech Club....)Wire - Video Game Consoles - Laptops - CamerasCamcorders - Internet devices - Keyboards - MiceMP3 Players - VCR’s & DVD’s - Cell Phones - Telephone EquipmentRecycling these electronic items keeps their lead and other toxic parts out of our landfills and water tables. And remember, this is FREE. There is no fee to you to bring anything.I have attached a flyer that you can print and post or pass on to others who might be interested.PLEASE NOTE: Electronic items that belong to the school district MAY NOT be recycled unless they have been properly surplused. Properly surplused computers may not be recycled unless their hard drives have been wiped. Please see your site tech coordinator for details. Thank you,Jan FetchoSan Luis Obispo High School

Yes, Back to the Sewer Wars

Ah, it was a nice break over the holiday, even though some commentors kept at it amidst the mistletoe and holly. Sigh. This from the Insurance Law Bulletin, California Association of Independent Insurance Adjusters (CAIIA). As a side note, I love the use of the phrase “a group of disgruntled residents” under the section labeled FACTS, was used to refer to people supporting the recall, while the word “a group of disgruntled residents” was NOT used to describe “a group called Taxpayers Watch.” Hahahah. Hmmm, wonder where CAIIA got their “facts” from? Well, far as I know, this case is still being discussed by attorneys looking for a settlement, or it’s in limbo while the Insurance Company appeals the ruling (?) or . . . . ? And so, like all things Sewerish, stay tuned.

California Association of Independent Insurance Adjusters
Insurance Law Bulletin
Submitted by Smith & Feeley, LLP, Irvine, CA
Insurer Has Duty to Defend Insureds Against Taxpayer Suit Seeking Both Injunctive Relief and “Damages”
The United States District Court, applying California law, has ruled that a liability insurer had a duty to defend its insureds against a taxpayer lawsuit suit which sought both injunctive relief and monetary “damages.” (The Los Osos Community Services Dist. v. American Alternative Ins. Corp. (C.D. Cal. 2008) — F.Supp.2d —, 2008 WL 4885680)
Facts
The Los Osos Community Services District (“District”) is a public entity which undertook plans to build a wastewater treatment facility in Los Osos, California. A number of people who lived in the area tried to stop construction of the treatment facility by placing a measure called “Measure B” on the ballot. In response, the District sued and obtained a court order declaring the measure illegal and barring it from the ballot.
Thereafter, a group of disgruntled residents succeeded in recalling three of the District’s Board members. The “new Board” then immediately took steps to stop the construction of the treatment facility. Among other things, the new Board dismissed the lawsuit brought to stop Measure B, which by then had reached the state appellate court. In addition, the new Board allegedly used $600,000 in state money to enter into a settlement with Measure B’s proponents, who were allied with the three new members of the Board.
In response, a group called Taxpayers Watch and two individual taxpayers (collectively “Taxpayers Watch plaintiffs”) sued the District and several Board members, alleging that the settlement was “a sham settlement with the Board’s cronies” and that ultimately District taxpayers “will be responsible for repaying those monies to the state of California.” The Taxpayers Watch plaintiffs sought relief under California Code of Civil Procedure section 526a, which provides that “[a]n action to obtain a judgment, restraining and preventing any illegal expenditure of, waste of, or injury to, the estate, funds, or other property of a county, town, [or] city … may be maintained against any officer thereof ... by a citizen resident therein … who is assessed for and is liable to pay… a tax therein.” The Taxpayers Watch plaintiffs also sought “a judgment requiring and mandating that … the District’s individual Board members be held personally liable to repay the monies wasted as a result of their thoughtless and wasteful decisions, including return of the $600,000 paid to Measure B proponents in a collusive settlement.”

The District filed for bankruptcy protection. However, the District’s individual Board members tendered the defense of the lawsuit to the District’s liability insurer, American Alternative Insurance Company (“AAIC”). The AAIC policy provided that the insurer would indemnify an insured against “damages because of ... ‘wrongful acts’,” and that the insurer would defend an insured against any suit seeking covered damages. AAIC denied the tender, on the ground that the Taxpayers Watch plaintiffs were not seeking monetary “damages” against the Board members.
Following the denial of coverage, the Board members filed a bad faith action against AAIC, alleging that AAIC had wrongfully refused to defend the Board members in the underlying action brought by the Taxpayers Watch plaintiffs. The Board members then moved for partial summary that AAIC had a duty to defend them in the underlying action.
Holding
The United States District Court, applying California law, held that AAIC did have a duty to defend the Board members in the underlying action brought by the Taxpayer Watch plaintiffs. The district court acknowledged that the Taxpayer Watch plaintiffs had sued the Board members under CCP section 526a, and that the text of section 526a only allows for injunctive relief—not monetary damages. However, the district court noted that despite the text of the statute, California state courts “have extended section 526a to allow taxpayers to obtain an order requiring officials to repay wasted funds to the public entity” and “have characterized this remedy as one for ‘damages.’” Under the circumstances, the Taxpayers Watch plaintiffs were seeking “damages” from the Board members, sufficient to trigger AAIC’s duty to defend. It did not matter that any damages recovered from the Board members would ultimately go back into the District’s coffers, as opposed to the Taxpayers Watch plaintiffs themselves.
COMMENT
The AAIC policy did not define the term “damages.” As such, the district court applied the case law definition of “damages” i.e., “‘compensation,’ in ‘money,’ ‘recovered’ by a party for ‘loss’ or ‘detriment’ it has suffered through the acts of another.”
Note that when a third-party claimant sues an insured under a statutory scheme that only allows for injunctive relief and does not allow for “damages,” the insurer may not have a duty to defend. (See, e.g., Cutler-Orosi Unified School District v. Tulare County School Districts Liability/ Property Self-Ins. Authority (1994) 31 Cal.App.4th 617, 629630.) Here, however, the Taxpayer Watch plaintiffs sued the Board members under a statute that has been interpreted to allow for both injunctive relief and “damages,” thus triggering AAIC’s duty to defend.

CAIIA Newsletter
CAIIA Office P.O. Box 168
Burbank, CA 91503-0168
Web site - http:\\www.caiia.org
Email: info@caiia.org
Tel: (818) 953-9200
Fax: (818) 953-9316
Editor: Sterrett Harper
Harper Claims Service, Inc.
Tel: (818) 953-9200
Permission to reprint is always extended, with appropriate credit to CAIIA Newsletter

Uh, Oh, Sign of The Times?

Went downtown SLO yesterday to the “underground” Downtowner Center Cinema to see “Doubt.” (wonderful acting, muddled, “shaggy-dog, You Woke me Up To Tell Me That? pointless plotlines (maybe it worked better as a stage play?). Anyway, I had noticed that the Tribune didn’t have the usual movie times listing for the Downtown Center, so I asked the young man at the window. Oh, sez he, “Corporate” decided it wasn’t worth the cost and decided not to run their ads in the Tribune. You can go fire up the computer and go on line or run through the Rolodex and call the number and sit through a long tape recording to get the list of films and show times. I asked if they were advertising in any other papers and was told, Yes, we’re still listing in New Times.

A central downtown movie theatre no longer lists its films and times in the County newspaper of record? If you live in Arroyo Grande, you can get film times for the A.G. Regal, or live in North County for the Paso Park, and Jim Dee’s SLO Palm is still listed. But not the SLOTOWN Freemont, Mission or DowntownCenter.

Is it just me or is that weird?

Eeeeezzzzzeee Listening

Friend gave me a listen to a (to me) unknown singer, Johnny Hartman. With a voice even more liquid than Nat King Cole or Billy Eckstine, Hartman is described in the liner notes as “one of the very best of a strong lot of big-voiced crooners who were the sine qua non of the big bebop band.” As indicated in the liner notes of one of his CDs, Hartman’s career and fame likely got derailed by the 1950’s white culture/music industry that felt that placed a kind of quota on handsome black lead singers. Too dangerous to have too many around, thank you, and Cole and Eckstine had taken all the allotted “black” crooner slots, sorry, go away. The result is that, except for knowledgeable fans, the name Hartman failed to become a household word. Teamed up with John Coltrane in the CD “John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman,” you’ll hear just what a loss to popular music that has been. Woooo.