Swenson v. County of Pinal (8/22/2017

October 12, 2017

The Arizona Court of Appeals Division Two holds that a government entity does not waive the protections of Arizona’s notice of claim statute by procuring liability insurance.

Plaintiffs brought a wrongful death action against a county. The county argued that the action was barred by the plaintiffs’ failure to file a notice of claim and by a one-year statute of limitations. Plaintiffs argued that the county had waived protection of the “sovereign immunity” provided by the notice of claim statute by obtaining liability insurance and contractual indemnity.

Without deciding whether obtaining liability insurance or contractual indemnity waived the county’s substantive right to sovereign immunity, the court concluded that the county did not waive the procedural protections that implement the right to sovereign immunity by procuring liability insurance and contractual indemnity. The court therefore affirmed the trial court’s decision dismissing the plaintiffs’ case.

Judge Vasquez authored the opinion in which Chief Judge Eckerstrom and Judge Howard concurred.