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Vol. 3, Iss. 1
January 8, 2014


Bionic Woman Wins California Motor Vehicle Issue
But Lindsay Wagner Does Not Respond To Coverage Opinions’s Request For Comment


When I was 11 years old I loved the bionic woman -- Lindsay Wagner. What 11 year old boy wouldn’t? She was beautiful, bionic and hung out with Steve Austin, The Six Million Dollar Man, the coolest guy on the planet. That is not a debatable question. [The Fonz was no. 2.]

I recently saw that the California Court of Appeal issued an opinion in Kent Smith v. Lindsay Wagner, No. B245821 (Cal. Ct. App. Dec. 19, 2013). Lindsay Wagner. But could it be THAT Lindsay Wagner? Surely she can’t be the only woman in American with that name. But who would want to sue Lindsay Wagner? Although it would present an opportunity to meet her at her deposition. And the case involved a car accident. With her bionic legs why would she need a car? No, it couldn’t be her.

So I did some poking around on the internet and discovered that Lindsay Wagner, the defendant in Smith v. Wagner, was in fact the super-strong Lindsay Wagner. So I read the case, found Lindsay’s e-mail address on her website and sent her off a note asking about the decision – which she won! Of course. This was my chance to speak to my dream girl. Plus I could ask her how Oscar Goldman is doing (Richard Anderson, age 88 and dashing as ever). Sadly, she did not respond. It’s possible (likely even) that she didn’t even know what decision I was talking about since it looks like the case was all handled by her insurer. It just wasn’t meant to be I guess. But it brought back some great memories of Jaime Sommers.

Smith v. Wagner has nothing at all to do with insurance, other than involving a motor vehicle accident where the defendants, including, Lindsay, were represented by State Farm. So I’ll keep this brief. In September 2008, Kent Smith was injured when his vehicle collided with one driven by Regina Samsel. Wagner owned the vehicle that Samsel was driving. Samsel was employed by Wagner and her company, Lindlear Corporation. Smith made a section 998 offer to compromise to Wagner and Samsel. The offer was not accepted and the case went to trial. Following a jury verdict the court entered judgment in favor of Smith and against Samsel, Wagner and Lindlear. The amount of the judgment was more than the amount of the section 998 offer to compromise.

Section 988 provides for a reallocation of allowable costs when a party rejects an offer to compromise and the offering party subsequently obtains a more favorable judgment. At issue before the California appeals court was whether Smith was entitled to recover certain costs on account of his judgment being more than the amount of his section 998 offer. For various reasons that are not important here, the appeals court affirmed the decision of the trial court that Smith was not entitled to recover costs because his section 998 offer was not valid.

Lindsay – it’s not too late. If you can hear me – and I know you can with a bionic ear – please get in touch.

 

 
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