The sound of gunfire that left two people dead stopped echoing through a south Everett neighborhood on May 30, 2000, but the repercussions are still vibrating in the state’s courtrooms.
The state Court of Appeals last week ruled that a homeowner’s insurance carrier for the people who fired the fatal shots is not responsible to pay relatives of two murdered Everett 18-year-olds.
The lawsuit comes in the case of Dennis Cramm, who was 17 when he grabbed a semiautomatic rifle after an arranged fistfight on his father’s property. When gunfire erupted following the fight, Cramm fired at a man who had been shooting in the direction of his father.
Jesse Stoner and Jason Thompson were in the backseat of a car in the middle of the crossfire. They were killed.
Their parents sued the Cramms and others involved in the melee. They also were seeking financial compensation from the company that held the homeowner’s policy purchased by Dennis Cramm’s father, Dale Brian Cramm.
In November 2002, Snohomish County Superior Court Judge George Bowden ruled that the insurance company, Farmers Insurance Co. of Washington, is not liable for damages because Dennis Cramm’s actions were intentional.
The policy, which had a limit of $500,000, excluded intentional illegal acts, the judge ruled.
Seattle lawyer Franklin Shoichet appealed the ruling, arguing on behalf of the dead teens’ parents that the intentional-act exclusion doesn’t apply in this case.
Dennis Cramm intentionally fired the rifle but he did not intend to kill Thompson and Stoner, Shoichet argued.
Farmers lawyer Sidney Snyder of Seattle argued that the exclusion applied because the deaths should have been the foreseen result of Dennis Cramm’s reckless act.
The three-judge panel agreed with Snyder.
Shoichet said he doesn’t know if he will appeal the unanimous decision.
He called this just “one step in a long process,” of the civil lawsuit. He said he will continue with the civil lawsuit against Dale Cramm.
Reporter Jim Haley: 425-339-3447 or haley@heraldnet.com.
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