Shooting case’s liability appealed

Published 9:00 pm Monday, April 19, 2004

SEATTLE — Dennis Cramm may have intended to pull the trigger on a semiautomatic rifle the evening of May 30, 2000. But he didn’t intend to kill two young men who were in the car between Cramm and the man at which he shot.

Partly for that reason, the insurance company that held the homeowner’s policy on the Cramm household should be responsible for paying the families of the slain teenagers, Seattle lawyer Franklin Shoichet told a three-judge panel of the state Court of Appeals Monday.

Shoichet is trying to convince the appeals court that a Snohomish County Superior Court judge was wrong in November 2002 when he held that an exclusion clause in the policy protects the insurance company from liability.

Farmers Insurance Co. of Washington underwrote the homeowner policy for Dale Brian Cramm, Dennis’ father. There’s a $500,000 limit.

It was Dale Cramm who helped organize a fistfight on his property between his son and another youth. Beforehand, according to evidence at Dennis Cramm’s criminal trial, Dale Cramm also organized the distribution of several weapons around the south Everett property.

When the fighting stopped, gunplay followed on both sides.

It was one of these weapons that Dennis Cramm used to fire the fatal shots, killing Jason Thompson and Jesse Stoner, both 18, of Everett. Dennis Cramm, then 18, was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder and sentenced to 60 years in prison. The state alleged shooting toward innocent bystanders was a reckless act done with disregard for the safety of anyone in the vicinity.

Thompson and Stoner were two of a large group of young people who came to watch the fight. They were in the back seat of a car that was leaving when the gunfight started.

Seattle attorney Sidney Snyder Jr. maintains the exclusionary clause in the Cramm policy prohibits coverage of any event caused by an intentional bad act.

"There was an intentional act committed by Mr. Cramm and the results were reasonably foreseeable," Snyder told the panel.

In late 2002, Superior Court Judge George Bowden ruled in favor of the insurance company. Bowden said he "reluctantly" agreed that the insurance company was off the hook.

Shoichet said the case’s results could have much wider ramifications because most homeowner policies written in Washington have similar exclusionary clauses.

He argued that Thompson and Stoner were not the intended targets, and the insurance policy’s meaning is ambiguous. He said Farmers has a responsibility to make the language in its contracts clear.

The parents of the two slain young men have filed a wrongful death lawsuit in Superior Court against both Cramms and numerous others involved in the melee.

Reporter Jim Haley: 425-339-3447 or haley@heraldnet.com.