Massey v. Farmers Insurance Group

The court pronounces today that a fire insurance policy’s statutorily mandated damage-assessment procedure, referred to *886in the policy as an “appraisal” 1 — by which a court-appointed umpire determines the amount of actual cash value of a fire loss— binds the party invoking the appraisal procedure (the Insurer in this case) but does not bind the nondemanding party (the Insured in this case). Today’s opinion reasons that the fire loss assessment procedure violates the Insured’s fundamental-law right to a jury trial guaranteed by Art. 2, § 19, Okl. Const.2

While I join in the result reached by…