Woman, 100, Finally Has Day in Court

The power-suited insurance company lawyer knew he would have to handle the witness delicately--even though she was suing his client for about $200,000.

After all, he conceded, he had never before cross-examined a woman on the eve of her 100th birthday.

“We’re in a no-win situation,” sighed Terry Rowland as the television cameras focused on Anne Campbell Smith. Looking pert in her handsome red dress, open-toed heels and jewelry, she was the darling of the courtroom Thursday.

“I’ve never been in court before,” she said, looking not at all nervous or apprehensive. “I’ve never driven a car, so I’ve never had a traffic ticket.”

But on Thursday, Smith was set to testify that when her 77-year-old Upland home burned to the ground in 1988 because of an electrical malfunction, her insurance company, Colonial Penn, gave her a raw deal.

The company, she alleged in court papers, shortchanged her on her temporary living expenses, failed to reimburse her adequately for the lost contents--clothes, furniture, jewelry, photographs--and, worst of all, reneged on its promise to pay for her to build a new home.

In the meantime, she is the oldest resident of an Ontario retirement home--where, she complained, there are a bunch of “old people who can’t hear good, can’t talk good and can’t go upstairs” to visit her.

Here is a woman who has a taste for red meat. She said she likes her roast beef rare, and on Thursday, she was ready to take a bite out of the insurance company. “I want this case finished,” she said, “before I’m finished.”

Colonial Penn denies all the charges. Rowland said the company has paid out everything it was required to--more than $160,000, with another $100,000 for her after her new house is rebuilt, per the insurance policy. Rowland said the reason Smith does not have a new home yet is because her 80-year-old son, Stuart Campbell, has ineffectively handled the claim on his mother’s behalf after he was given the insurance money.

Smith, who expects to see her centennial photograph displayed by television weatherman Willard Scott this morning on “The Today Show,” was not sure the jury would be sympathetic toward her because of her seniority.

“Some may think the other way,” she said during a court recess. “They may wonder, ‘What’s a sad old woman want with money?’ ”

Court employees chuckled, reporters smiled, and the insurance company lawyer looked somewhat stone-faced.

“This is not a newsworthy story,” Rowland said quietly. “This insurance company does not deserve to be here.”

But he knew that he might be viewed unfavorably by jurors, grilling this sweet old woman on the witness stand, and so he addressed that quandary during jury selection.

“I asked if anyone would hold it against me if, as I defend my client, I cross-examine a 100-year-old woman,” Rowland said. “I asked if they’d be hissing at me.”

Alas, that confrontation may not occur. During Thursday’s session in San Bernardino Superior Court, attorneys for both sides huddled in the chambers of Judge Paul M. Bryant Jr. After a while, Smith was asked to join them. And when they emerged, both sides clammed up amid speculation that an out-of-court settlement was imminent.

Smith said she was not disappointed that she did not have to take the witness stand to confront Colonial Penn.

“I just want to get this settled,” she said.

And as the television cameras shadowed her down the courtroom hallway, she remarked: “Boy, I didn’t think there would be all this commotion.”