Court Opinion

ID: 9627413
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 08:43:17.618874+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:36:43.253116
License: Public Domain

BISTLINE, Justice,
dissenting.
My position in this case is much the same as it was in Moss v. Mid-America Fire Insurance Co., 103 Idaho 298, 647 P.2d 754 (1982), wherein I was the middleman not convinced by the plurality opinion of Justices Shepard and Donaldson, nor by the other plurality opinion of Justices McFadden and Bakes. Writing separately, I mentioned that the insured testified that he asked the local agent’s opinion, and was given it. 103 Idaho at 304, 647 P.2d at 758. Unlike that case, however, in this case the insured purchased the policy upon a representation by the agent, as Judge MeClintick put it at the hearing on motion for new trial, that there would be coverage when *71driving non-owned vehicles.1 This theory did not creep into the case, but was pleaded in Paragraph VI of the Second Cause of Action pleaded in the complaint.2
In arguing the motion for new trial defendant’s counsel saw it differently than did the court:
“It’s a simple matter as set forth in the pretrial memorandum that estoppel is simply not a viable cause of action here. It should have been fraud. It should have been plead as fraud, and they should have had to prove their case by clear and convincing evidence.”
An instruction was given which presented this theory to the jury:
“JURY INSTRUCTION NO. 19
“If you find that Plaintiffs, Rodney Scott Baldwin and Deborah Lynn Baldwin, were induced to enter into a contract of insurance in reasonable reliance on promises of or agreements with the soliciting representative of the insurance company, thereby leaving the insured person or property otherwise unprotected, and the company profits from that change of position, the insurance company is estopped to deny the liability for which it actually contracted by raising provisions from its own printed policy form and you must rule in favor of the Plaintiffs.”
On appeal the defendant continues to urge that this was error. It seems to me that defendant continues to believe that the agent’s representations must have been made knowingly false. However, while a false statement knowingly made is essential to a fraud theory, it is not required to create an estoppel. The agent may actually believe that which he states to be so, and it is only required that it be a statement made within his ostensible authority. Martin v. Argonaut Insurance Co., 91 Idaho 885, 434 P.2d 103 (1967). What is further required to establish liability is a reliance on the part of the party purchasing the insurance which is reasonable. The above instruction given by the court was derived from the language used by this Court in a unanimous opinion, Lewis v. Continental Life And Accident Co., 93 Idaho 348, 351, 461 P.2d 243, 246 (1969). In that case the Court set forth the facts of a case from the South Carolina Supreme Court, declared that court’s reasoning correct, and agreed with it:
*72“Our holding is buttressed by the recent decision of the Supreme court of South Carolina in the case of Spencer v. Republic National Life Insurance Company [243 S.C. 317, 133 S.E.2d 826 (1963) ]. The facts in that case are literally exactly on point with this one insofar as the question of initial coverage is concerned. In that case, a county changed group insurers to avail itself of a lower premium rate, but only after the new insurer promised to cover all employees then covered under the county’s old plan. The insurers were changed on February 1, 1961. The deceased employee in that case entered the hospital on January 14, 1961, and died on February 2, 1961. The policy, like the Continental policy in this case, included a standard ‘actively at work’ provision which the company attempted to use as a bar to the decedent’s beneficiary’s recovery. The Supreme Court of South Carolina said, in holding that the insurance company could not impose such a condition,
‘Under the undisputed evidence, the appellant was clearly estopped from relying upon the “actively at work” clause contained in both the application and the subsequently delivered policy. The proposal submitted by Thornton [the insurance company’s representative] to Florence County was approved by the appellant and there is no question before us as to the authority of Thornton in the premises. Thornton, in good faith, represented to the county that all employees would be immediately covered from the date of the issuance of the policy, which representation was, in good faith, acted upon by Florence County to the detriment of its employees, Mrs. Spencer in particular, when in reliance upon the representations, the coverage in existence was allowed to expire, on the assurance that the new coverage would fully and immediately replace it.’ (Emphasis supplied).” 93 Idaho at 352-53, 461 P.2d at 247-48 (footnote omitted).
In Martin v. Argonaut, supra, this Court upheld the trial court’s determination that the agent there had the authority to bind the company to the renewal agreement notwithstanding a general non-waiver policy provision. 91 Idaho at 893, 434 P.2d at 111. Both Lewis and Martin relied on Huppert v. Wolford, 91 Idaho 249, 420 P.2d 11 (1966). In Martin this Court noted from Huppert:
“[T]he trial court determined, and such finding is supported by competent evidence, that Wolford did not inform Vloedman that he lacked the authority to provide immediate coverage on the logging truck, and no contention is made that Vloedman should have known Wolford lacked such authority.” 91 Idaho at 891, 434 P.2d at 109.
In Lewis this Court noted from Huppert:
“In Collard v. Universal Automobile Insurance Company [55 Idaho 560, 45 P.2d 288 (1935)] a provision in an auto accident policy which expressly stated that the contract was void if ownership changed was held to have been waived by the gratuitous declaration of the company’s agent, and the company was held liable when the new owner of the car was involved in an accident while on a trip which he took in reliance on the agent’s statements. These holdings have recently been reaffirmed in Huppert v. Wolford [supra ]. In that case a representative of an insurance company promised a truck driver that he would become insured for an indeterminate period from the time that he signed an application. The printed application form, however, expressly limited the binder period to fifteen days. The promise made by the company’s representative was held to have estopped the company from barring recovery from it for damages arising out of an accident which had involved the insured truck and which had occurred more than fifteen days after the application had been signed. Huppert, on its facts, is a much stronger case from the insurance company’s standpoint than is this one. In that case the provision which the company sought to raise in *73defense was on a form actually signed by the insured contemporaneously with the parole promise of the insurance agent. In this case Continental is attempting to impose a provision in a printed form which was simply delivered to the county after an agreement had been reached, and which was at variance with that pri- or agreement.” Lewis, 93 Idaho at 351-52, 461 P.2d at 246-47 (footnotes omitted).
The question on the estoppel theory is not whether the policy provisions are or are not ambiguous, but whether the company defendant is even entitled to resort to that language. The given instruction informed the jury that the insured’s reliance must be that of a reasonable person. This was adequate. Jurors are selected in the first place because they are thought to be reasonable, and presently at least, I cannot see that there was any error, in not instructing the jury as to how they should decide such a proposition. “Reasonable” in and of itself is generally recognized as a word of common understanding.
For certain there was no error in not giving defendant’s requested Instruction No. 20, which on cursory examination is found to be couched in language which is more aptly used in fraud and deceit actions — not estoppel.
The opinion authored by Justice Huntley has much good to be said for it. Commendably he attempts to straighten out a difficult area of the law — an area which needs to be straightened out. If I had the controlling vote, the Court would sit on this egg a bit longer and hopefully hatch out an opinion which does clarify the law and commands a unanimous vote. Presently there are portions of the majority opinion with which I do not agree. One in particular is the statement couched in the double negative, and speculative as well, that “It is certainly not the law in Idaho that an insured has no obligation to read his policy, and may with confidence rely on subjective impressions he may have obtained in talking with an agent prior to entering into an insurance contract.” Such statement confuses direct statements of an agent with the hearer’s impressions. I see no relevance here in that rather ambiguous statement, and do not understand either that it is the law in Idaho that an insured is obligated to read his policy — which assumes that he will understand what he reads. Buying insurance is very often like buying any commodity. The purchaser makes known what he wants, pays his money, and rightfully assumes that the finely worded package which he receives is what he bargained for.
Another problem with the opinion of Justice Huntley is the supposition entered into after stating the principle of Lewis, i.e., “supposing,” etc., “it is therefore arguable whether the Baldwins were left ‘unprotected’ ” and “it is doubtful they could have obtained the type of coverage they hoped to receive anywhere in the industry.”
Turning to the separate opinion of Justice Shepard, I submit my belief that the Moss case has little if any bearing on this case. As to the cross-appeal, the trial court did err in reducing the jury’s verdict assessing punitive damages.
As stated above, my first vote is that this Court as a collegial group retain the case in an effort to achieve unanimity. That failing, on the main appeal, I vote to affirm on the judgment for compensatory damages and, on the cross-appeal, to reinstate the punitive damages.

. The court’s language was as follows:
"I have announced that I was going to rule at a later time on the punitive damages, and I was in the process of talking about the other objection — or the other bases for the motion for new trial and had indicated that I believed that the theory of liability of estoppel was a valid one under the circumstances in this case.
"If the jury were to find that the plaintiffs asked defendant's agent if they would be covered when they were driving non-owned vehicles, and the agent said, 'Yes, that will be covered by the policy,’ then I believe that the company which wrote the policy shouldn't be able to bring up its provisions to deny coverage or drive other — or drive non-owned vehicles.
"Since that is a viable theory of recovery and since the jury did find for the plaintiffs on that theory, the Court, I don’t believe, should grant a new trial if it can be — if the jury’s verdict can be sustained on any theory, I think that it should stand.
“As you gentlemen both know, the Court was concerned about whether it might have been error to prohibit the defendant underwriter to testify as to what the policy meant. The defendants wrote the policy. There was evidence accepted by the jury that the defendant’s agent stated without any definitions or exclusions that if you drive another — a car not owned by you, you’re covered, and the insured said, ‘Okay, then we’ll buy,’ that the insurer then should not be permitted to explain that the policy didn’t mean what the agent said it meant. The Court will therefore deny a new trial on the basis of denying the underwriter to answer the questions which were designed to explain the meaning of the policy.”
Tr„ pp. 304-05.

. Paragraph VI of the Second Cause of Action reads as follows:
“By representing the Plaintiffs DEBORAH LYNN and RODNEY SCOTT BALDWIN that the insurance policy above-described covered the operation of all non-owned automobiles, said representations occurring both before and after the accident above-described, Defendants are now estopped and prohibited from denying coverage based upon exclusions finely drawn in the language of the policy itself.”