"This is just wrong," columnist knew

Every once in awhile events play out just like the Olympic Mountains.

To understand the analogy, you have to get an image of what it's like to look west from Seattle on a really clear day or at sunset. In a single view you can see the entire range, start to finish, and you are reminded what a special place this is to be. That's how I feel about four columns Danny Westneat wrote over the course of a week: They pointed out an injustice; registered outraged reaction, and helped prompt quick resolution. Just like the Olympics, it was all right there, and it was good.

"You should listen to some of my voice mails. They're very uplifting," Westneat said when I inquired about the columns. "Reminds me of why I got into this business in the first place."

The columns were about Ethel Adams, a 60-year-old Everett resident in what Westneat called an "odyssey into insurance hell." In March, Michael Testa deliberately rammed his truck into the back of his girlfriend's truck on Aurora Avenue North, forcing it across the centerline and into the car Adams was driving. Adams was in a coma for nine days and spent five months in the hospital and a nursing home.

Westneat wrote that Farmers Insurance "decided that the $2 million uninsured-motorist policies covering Adams didn't apply to anything Testa did because he caused the wreck on purpose. In Farmers' view, the wreck therefore was not an accident — even for Adams, who was just driving by, minding her own business."

The columnist first heard of the problem from a lawyer for Adams. "Usually the stuff that sounds outrageous turns out to be much more gray," he said, but he decided to check it out. "The more I looked into it the more outrageous it was, which doesn't usually happen.

"I'm not really the crusading type, but in this case the situation seemed outrageous, and I felt like I needed to say that. This just doesn't seem right. This is just wrong."

Here's what he wrote: "What ought to happen next is Farmers should miraculously discover some inner decency — or maybe just some shame — and pay Adams her due."

Readers agreed, and so did state Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler. In a subsequent column, Westneat quoted Kreidler as saying, "Nobody here has ever seen an insurance company come up with such a bizarre and imaginative way of applying insurance law as this case. They're just wrong, and it's obvious they're wrong. The bottom line is they are going to pay this claim."

A day later Farmers said it would pay, and here's how Westneat quoted Adams in his fourth column about her plight:

"I'm so overwhelmed that people actually care and are willing to help a perfect stranger — it's just amazing. Who would have thought that could still happen in this day and age?"

In all, Westneat received about 900 e-mails and more than 100 telephone messages from readers, the most response he's gotten since he started the column in March last year. He apologizes for not being able to respond to each of them.

Among those who responded were Farmers agents who shared the sentiments of other readers. Westneat said their reaction reflected well on the company. "There's a lot of honest, trustworthy, or at least reasonable, people working there. It's not an indictment of the whole company."

Westneat said he is thrilled for Adams, who "really was in a state of shock when I first met her." Afterward "she was buoyant," and excited about her therapy. "It helped this recovering woman to know that she still matters in the world. That's a really gratifying thing to be a part of," he said.

Westneat had thought that a column about Adams might start some reader discussion along the lines of, "If this woman isn't covered, what could happen to me?" He didn't expect what he later described as a "minirebellion."

"I didn't know this would happen," he said. "The meat of the story really resonated with people in a way that I couldn't have predicted."

He added that, if anything, he tries not to be strident, feeling there is too much of that in the media already. "I try to avoid that. I'm trying not to put on a show."

That said, after a year and a half he finds column writing "endlessly fascinating."

"I love to have a platform to say, 'Hey, here's an important issue.' "

He said he thrives on reader feedback. "I rely on people to tell me what they think is important or interesting." He is surprised that reader reaction is typically positive, although from time to time he gets personal attacks or insults. "It's kind of shocking, but I'm getting used to it."

After his first column ran last year I quoted a reader who told him: "You are the most clueless, self-absorbed columnist I have ever read. I hope they dump you and save the ink for someone with a brain."

This week he got this message: "Boy, that's what good journalism is all about, and you're a hero."

Inside The Times appears in the Sunday Seattle Times. If you have a comment on news coverage, write to Michael R. Fancher, P.O. Box 70, Seattle, WA 98111, call 206-464-3310 or send e-mail to mfancher@seattletimes.com. More columns at www.seattletimes.com/columnists