Imagine being at a red light and a vehicle whose driver blows through the signal hits your car and puts you on the hook for some hefty medical bills. You change the channel for trial lawyer ads on TV like many people, but this is different. There’s liability with this accident, and someone’s going to pay.

As the endgame of the civil trial involving former circuit clerk Shelly Ashley-Palmertree plays out, it’s irresistible to plug the situation into the wreck analogy. The slow-motion disaster of her final, truncated term in office has come to a question proposed Monday by Warren County’s attorney before county supervisors. “There’s really one issue that he has to decide — and it’s whether Western Surety is liable,” attorney Marcie Southerland said during an update for the board.

If the same scenario is applied to our accident victims, they’d likely put an exclamation point next to the question mark and ask, “Why have insurance if no one’s liable?!”

CNA Surety, the parent company of Western Surety Company, was engaged in the countersuit filed by the county and State Auditor Stacey Pickering shortly after Palmertree herself sued each entity two years ago this Friday to ask Hinds County Chancery Court if she owed $671,751.75 in questioned payments over five years time. The Chicago-based insurer has about 40,000 appointed agencies to do surety and fidelity bonds in all 50 U.S. states, Canada and Puerto Rico, according to its website. You’ll also find on their homepage a link to a survey where the company rated highest in the underwriting industry for surety bonds for a second straight year. Food for thought, given the insurer’s resistance to paying off on the $100,000 bonds on Palmertree for each of her three elected terms.

Despite the company’s apparent standing in the industry, their approval rating in the courthouse has plummeted. Until CNA became something of a second defendant in the countersuit, they bonded nearly all elected officials in Warren County and their various deputies who work in the courthouse and elsewhere. That’s changed since about the middle of last year, as competitors like Travelers have become the insurer of choice on renewed bonds.

The insurer’s stance continued in the two options it put before Chancellor Dewayne Thomas last week. One says the company should be held liable for none of the stated debts, which grew to more than $1.04 million during the course of the case due to interest and another year’s worth of activity tacked on. They claim a procedural defense here and say they weren’t notified until 2013 that the clerk’s office’s activities were being investigated. The other says they’re liable only for the $50,791 noted on the office’s 2006 audit, when auditors first made clear they were actively trying to recover money from the clerk.

It’s not likely the clerk will pay up; she’s serving five years for embezzlement and might get more jail time once an April 6 trial on additional charges wraps up. Is it too much to ask that $1.04 million in damage to the taxpayers’ vehicle, so to speak, is costly enough to dispense with legal hoops and honor the bonds?