The court of appeals accepts special action jurisdiction to tell the litigants that the trial judge was right. The health care district is subject to liability under APSA, and the notice of claim was correctly directed at Valleywise. (The notice did not cite APSA, but there were enough facts in the notice to satisfy the notice of claim statute.) Valleywise argued it was not a “person” or “enterprise” under the APSA statute. Because the statute creating a special health care district subjects the district to “all” claims, and nothing in the APSA statute precludes an APSA claim, we can only assume the defendant believed it could get more mileage out of Estate of Braden.

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This is another notice of claim gone wrong. Plaintiffs filed a notice of claim against Maricopa County for the negligence of a sheriff’s deputy. The Arizona Supreme Court does not excuse this mistake, and puts its stamp of approval of 50 years of precedent. Fridena v. Maricopa Cnty., 18 Ariz.App. 527 (App. 1972). A county does not control a deputy sheriff – the elected sheriff does. A sheriff is a separately elected official and is vicariously liable for misconduct of the deputy. While the county has fiscal responsibility, and by statute a sheriff’s liability is considered a “county charge,” fiscal responsibility is not tort responsibility. The Arizona Supreme notes most other courts have followed Fridena except for a few errant federal district judges. It was good to see a reference to J.D. v. Hegyi on the importance of context in statutory interpretation.  That point is missed in a few recent opinions.

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Signing a sticky note “XO” does not satisfy the signature requirement for a valid holographic will. When Jamie Bixby died, she left behind two sticky notes on a coffee table. One note stated: “I’m sorry, I just don’t have the tools for this. Beth gets everything.” The second note stated: Also, sorry universe, thank you for the experience. . . . maybe XO.” The trial court ruled that the purported will lacked a signature. The court of appeals agreed. “XO” is not a signature in the usual sense and is a common abbreviation for “hugs and kisses.” The court of appeals consulted an online dictionary, the Cambridge Dictionary, and the Oxford Dictionary.  An X by itself has been used and accepted as a signature, the court explained, but under those circumstances, the nature of the mark and its context suggested the mark had been placed with “signatory intent.” Since XO does not show signatory intent, the court need not consider “testamentary intent.” Way too much time, energy, and research were spent on drafting this opinion. Reaching an opposite result would have been absurd, so why not write a two sentence decision: “The court below correctly determined that XO written on the bottom of a sticky note does not meet the signature requirement for a holographic will. We agree; judgment affirmed.” 

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