Opinion ID: 2162530
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Stare decisis considerations and M.A.P. v. Ryan.

Text: Judge King argues in dissent that this court is obliged, under the doctrine of M.A.P. v. Ryan, 285 A.2d 310 (D.C.1971), to apply the American Rule and require Potomac Residence to pay its own counsel fees. We do not agree. The parties have cited no District of Columbia precedent, and we have found none, squarely deciding the question whether the American Rule is applicable to a situation like the present one, in which the insured has paid its premiums for the specific purpose of avoiding any obligation to retain or pay counsel, and in which the insurer's breach has denied the insured the representation to which it had a right under the terms of the policy. The closest case to this one is Siegel v. William E. Bookhultz & Sons, Inc., 136 U.S.App. D.C. 138, 419 F.2d 720 (1969). In Siegel, the court held that the insured was entitled to recover litigation costs and counsel fees incurred in a declaratory judgment action to establish insurance coverage where the insurer (1) erroneously refused to provide a defense after a dubious investigation; (2) steadfastly resisted the insured's attempts to establish the right to a defense; and (3) abandoned an obviously helpless insured to whatever might come, leaving the insured in a hapless predicament. Id. at 143, 419 F.2d at 725. Although the court also stated that it could not ignore the insured's expense of litigation where the insurer, however honestly motivated, acts at its peril in disregarding the insured's claim to a defense, id. (emphasis added), Siegel cannot fairly be read as deciding whether the insured is entitled to counsel fees in a declaratory judgment action to establish coverage in the absence of the oppressive conduct by the insurer which the court discerned in that case. Siegel therefore does not dispose of the issue before us. [8] Judge King relies on Safeway Stores, Inc. v. Chamberlain Protective Servs., Inc., 451 A.2d 66 (D.C.1982), a case not cited by the parties. In Safeway Stores, a supermarket security guard who was employed by Chamberlain allegedly assaulted a customer. The customer brought an action against both Safeway and Chamberlain, asserting that they were joint tortfeasors. Safeway filed a cross-claim against Chamberlain in which it alleged that Chamberlain was primarily liable for the plaintiff's injury, and that Chamberlain owed Safeway a duty of indemnification. The jury found both defendants liable to the plaintiff and ruled in Chamberlain's favor on Safeway's request for indemnification. The trial judge, however, granted Safeway's motion for judgment n.o.v. on the cross-claim, concluding that Chamberlain had an implied obligation . . . to indemnify Safeway. Id. at 68. Safeway then sought to recover its counsel fees as part of Chamberlain's obligation of indemnity. The trial court denied relief and this court, invoking the American Rule, affirmed. Id. at 68-73. We think that Safeway Stores is distinguishable from the present case in decisive respects. Although Chamberlain, a primary tortfeasor, had an implied obligation to indemnify Safeway, the agreement between the two parties did not center on any duty on the part of Chamberlain to assure that Safeway would not have to retain counsel. On the contrary, Safeway hired Chamberlain to maintain order in Safeway's supermarket, not to provide Safeway with legal representation. Safeway Stores is not dispositive here because the considerations which make application of the American Rule so incongruous and unfair in the present context, see pp. 1231-1235, supra, simply did not arise. Our position is supported by Link v. District of Columbia, 650 A.2d 929 (D.C.1994), a case which also addressed the scope of the American Rule. In that case, we rejected the position that the enumeration in Alyeska and subsequent cases of three exceptions to that Rule precludes the recognition of any other exceptions, no matter what the circumstances may be. In Link, the District of Columbia was adjudged to be in civil contempt of a Superior Court order, but the trial judge expressly found that the disobedience was not willful. The plaintiff, who was represented by attorneys from the Neighborhood Legal Services Program at no cost to herself, requested an award of counsel fees in connection with the conduct of the civil contempt proceedings. The Supreme Court had stated in Alyeska that in the exercise of its equitable authority, a court may assess attorneys' fees for the willful disobedience of a court order ... or when the losing party has acted in bad faith, vexatiously, wantonly, or for oppressive reasons. 421 U.S. at 258-59, 95 S.Ct. at 1622 (quoted in Link, 650 A.2d at 931). Seizing on that language, the District argued that, absent a showing of willfulness, Alyeska and this court's precedents applying the American Rule precluded an award of counsel fees to the plaintiff in Link. This court rejected the District's contention. We noted that Alyeska was not a contempt case, and that the Supreme Court had not addressed the question before us in Link and could not have decided it. 650 A.2d at 932. We held that because the District had violated an order of the court, the plaintiff was entitled to an award of counsel fees in spite of her failure to prove that the District had acted willfully, oppressively, or in bad faith. Link, 650 A.2d at 931-33. We thus recognized a civil contempt exception to the American Rule, and we declined to read as dispositive decisions in which we had applied the American Rule, under entirely different circumstances, to deny counsel fees to a prevailing party. Our problem here is not unlike that which confronted the court in Link. [9] The denial of counsel fees in the present context raises issues which have not previously been considered by this court. [T]he rule of stare decisis is never properly invoked unless in the decision put forward as precedent the judicial mind has been applied to and passed upon the precise question. District of Columbia v. Sierra Club, 670 A.2d 354, 360 (D.C.1996) (quoting Murphy v. McCloud, 650 A.2d 202, 205 (D.C.1994)); see also Umana v. Swidler & Berlin, Chartered, 669 A.2d 717, 720 (D.C.1995). The judicial mind cannot fairly be said to have passed on the issue before us. Our dissenting colleague's position is also effectively foreclosed by our very recent decision in Carl v. Children's Hosp., 702 A.2d 159 (D.C.1997) (en banc) (per curiam) ( Carl II ). In that case, a nurse who was an at-will employee claimed that Children's Hospital had wrongfully discharged her in retaliation for testifying before the Council of the District of Columbia in opposition to proposed tort reform legislation and for appearing as a plaintiff's expert witness in medical malpractice litigation. The trial judge dismissed the complaint for failure to state a claim upon which relief may be granted. A division of this court affirmed. Carl v. Children's Hosp., 657 A.2d 286 (D.C.1995) ( Carl I ). The division was of the opinion that, as interpreted in subsequent case law, [10] our earlier decision in Adams v. George W. Cochran Co., 597 A.2d 28 (D.C.1991), in which we held that it was unlawful for an employer to discharge an employee for refusing to violate a statute, represented the sole permissible exception to the employment at-will doctrine, [11] and that a division of this court was not at liberty to recognize any new exception. Carl I, 657 A.2d at 288-89; see also id. at 294 (Farrell, J., concurring). In Carl II, however, this court, sitting en banc, rejected the division's reasoning. The court held that the very narrow exception created in Adams should not be read in a manner that makes it impossible to recognize any additional public policy exceptions to the at-will doctrine that may warrant recognition.... We could not and did not hold in Adams that this was the only public policy exception, because that question was simply not presented. Adams simply said that there is  a very narrow exception to the at-will doctrine, not just one and only one such exception. There is nothing in the Adams opinion that bars this courteither a three-judge panel or the court en banc from recognizing some other public policy exception when circumstances warrant such recognition. On this point a majority of the en banc court agrees. Carl II, 702 A.2d at 160 (citations omitted); see also id. at 161 (Terry, J., concurring); id. at 166 (Ferren, J., concurring); id. at 174 (Schwelb, J., concurring); id. at 186 (Mack, J., concurring). Our dissenting colleague's approach in this case is essentially identical to that taken by the division in Carl I. Just as the division in that case asserted that Adams represented the sole exception to the at-will doctrine, so Judge King now says that the three exceptions to the American Rule enumerated in Alyeska constitute the sole permissible exceptions to that Rule. Judge King thus continues to insist that decisions by the Supreme Court and by this court should be construed as deciding [a] question [that] was simply not presented. Carl II, supra, 702 A.2d at 160. In Carl II, the en banc court squarely and emphatically rejected that proposition.