Court of Appeals of Oregon, 2022

Thoens v. Safeco Ins. Co.

Thoens v. Safeco Ins. Co.
Court of Appeals of Oregon · Decided May 4, 2022
319 Or. App. 450; 508 P.3d 1001

Thoens v. Safeco Ins. Co.

Opinion

On appellant’s petition for reconsideration filed March 9, and respondent’s response filed March 15; reconsideration allowed, former opin- ion (317 Or App 727, 507 P3d 284) modified and adhered to as modified May 4, 2022

Susann M. THOENS, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. SAFECO INSURANCE COMPANY OF OREGON, Defendant-Appellant.

Multnomah County Circuit Court 091116530; A168067 508 P3d 1001

Marilyn E. Litzenberger, Judge.

Thomas M. Christ and Sussman Shank LLP for petition.

Shenoa Payne for response.

Before Ortega, Presiding Judge, and Shorr, Judge, and Powers, Judge.

PER CURIAM Reconsideration allowed; former opinion modified and adhered to as modified.

Cite as 319 Or App 450 (2022) 451 PER CURIAM Defendant Safeco Insurance Company of Oregon petitions for reconsideration of our opinion in Thoens v. Safeco Ins. Co., 317 Or App 727, 507 P3d 284 (2022). Although we adhere to our disposition of the case, we allow reconsid- eration and modify the text of our prior opinion to address defendant’s contention that our ruling on defendant’s second assignment of error was “based on a misunderstanding of defendant’s argument.”1 Specifically, we add the below text as a footnote, placed at the end of the partial paragraph at id. at 744, fol- lowing the text, “defendant cites no law that supports its point”: “To the extent that defendant is instead arguing that the referee’s statutory fee award was unreasonable as a mat- ter of law because it was based on a lodestar calculation instead of a percent-of-recovery calculation, we also reject that argument. As we explained above, defendant cites no support for its contention that a lodestar-based statutory fee award is inherently unreasonable where the prevailing plaintiff’s contingent fee agreement also entitles her attor- neys to all court-awarded fees. Again, we find no author- ity for that contention either. And, as we will explain, the court’s fee award was reasonable and supported by the evidence.”

As described in the above modifications, we adhere to our previous disposition.

Reconsideration allowed; former opinion modified and adhered to as modified.

Defendant also asks that we reconsider our conclusion, related to defen- dant’s second assignment of error, that the evidence supported the referee’s fee award, because, defendant argues, our ruling was based on “a misunderstanding of the evidence.” We decline to reconsider that aspect of our decision.

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