Jay Merrill, V Pemco Mutual Insurance Company, 75637-1

Class action settlement required PEMCO to fund a $15 million common fund to be distributed pro rata based on each class member’s "Individual Class Member Repair Cost Payment" divided by the "Total Repair Cost Payments."
"Class List" was defined in the settlement as "the revised class notice list furnished to Class Counsel by the Defendants on March 31, 2015," and Exhibit C allowed the list to be "updated by Defendants."
PEMCO initially provided a March 31, 2015 list with 17,050 members and total repair costs of $59,132,793.10; subsequent updates increased membership to 17,863 (total $60,040,671.19) and later to 19,258 (total ~$64.5 million).
Trial court preliminarily approved the settlement and authorized notice using the March 31 list "or as updated by Defendants;" PEMCO mailed notices based on the updated lists.
After additional valid claims were added post-March 31, PEMCO sought to include those claims in the settlement denominator (Total Repair Cost Payments), which would slightly reduce per-member payouts; Merrill (class representative) argued the denominator should be frozen at the March 31 amount.
The trial court ruled that the final updated class list (including the supplemental additions) governs both membership and the Total Repair Cost Payments used in the payment formula; Merrill appealed.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether the settlement’s defined "Class List" is fixed as of March 31, 2015 for calculating the payment formula denominator	Merrill: "Class List" unambiguously means the March 31, 2015 list, so the Total Repair Cost Payments should be frozen at that amount	PEMCO: The settlement and Exhibit C allow updates; the list used for notice (as updated) should also set membership and the denominator	Court held the class list could be updated; the final updated list (including supplemental additions) governs membership and the Total Repair Cost Payments

Aguirre v. AT&T Wireless Servs., 118 Wn. App. 236, 75 P.3d 603 (2003) (de novo review of settlement interpretation)
Tyrrell v. Farmers Ins. Co. of Wash., 140 Wn.2d 129, 994 P.2d 833 (2000) (settlement interpretation principles)
In re Estate of Harford, 86 Wn. App. 259, 936 P.2d 48 (1997) (contract principles apply to settlements)
Hearst Commc'ns, Inc. v. Seattle Times Co., 154 Wn.2d 493, 115 P.3d 262 (2005) (objective manifestation theory and contractual interpretation)
Viking Bank v. Firgrove Commons 3 LLC, 183 Wn. App. 706, 334 P.3d 116 (2014) (interpret contract provisions in context of the whole instrument)
Black v. Nat'l Merit Ins. Co., 154 Wn. App. 674, 226 P.3d 175 (2010) (same-term usage presumed consistent throughout contract)