Court Opinion

ID: 9629068
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 09:36:31.411504+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:07:15.143690
License: Public Domain

BAKES, Justice,
dissenting.
The majority voids that portion of the insurance policies in question which contain the one-year limitation on actions required by the provisions of I.C. § 41-2401, which mandates that all fire insurance policies issued in the State of Idaho be issued on the New York standard form as revised in 1943. The insurance policies in question substantially complied with the 1943 New York standard form, and the one-year limitation of action provision in each of the policies in this case conformed to the 1943 New York standard form.1
The majority voids the one-year limitation provision because of an alleged violation of Art. 3, § 16, of the Idaho Constitution which requires that the title of every act shall express the subject contained in the act. The majority correctly states the rule of construction to be that “the legislature is accorded wide discretion in designing titles to its enactments, Golconda Lead Mines v. Neill, 82 Idaho 96, 350 P.2d 221 (1960), and that a violation of Idaho Constitution, Art. 3, § 16, must be substantial and clearly manifested before nullification of a statute under that constitutional section is warranted____” Ante at 1004. I believe that the title to the act in question is adequate under the standard set out in our prior cases as articulated by the majority opinion. The title to chapter 330, 1961 Idaho Session Laws, provides in part “to prescribe terms, conditions, and prohibitions for or with respect to certain insurance contracts and annuity contracts, and to provide for certain powers, rights, obligations, prohibitions, immunities, and consequences as to insureds and other persons relative to such contracts and matters affecting or arising therefrom ____” I do not believe that the legislature must refer in the title to the contents of individual insurance policies mandated by a section of that chapter, in order to not violate Art. 3, § 16, of the Idaho Constitution.
In a substantially similar case, in a different setting, we upheld another statute against a similar constitutional challenge. In State v. Kellogg, 98 Idaho 541, 568 P.2d 514 (1977), this Court had under consideration a constitutional challenge to a criminal statute which in effect defined a controlled substance as any prescription drug defined as such by the commissioner of the United States Food & Drug Administration. In that case neither the title to the act nor the criminal statute in question set out the name of any controlled substance, nor did any other section of the Idaho Code or regulation of the Board of Pharmacy. The Idaho legislative scheme merely adopted by reference whatever drugs were designated as prescription drugs by the commissioner of the United States Food & Drug Administration. Nowhere in the title to the act making it a crime to have possession of such a controlled substance, or to any order or regulation of the United States Food & Drug Administration. Nevertheless, this *29Court upheld the constitutionality of that criminal statute.
If the statute in State v. Kellogg, supra, passes constitutional muster, then certainly I.C. § 41-2401 does not violate Art. 3, § 16, of the Idaho Constitution.
Accordingly, the particular provisions of the insurance policies in question here, being in compliance with I.C. § 41-2401, should be upheld.

. Whether or not the particular fire insurance policies precisely follow the New York standard form as revised in 1943 would be immaterial in this case because I.C. § 41-1821 of the Insurance Code provides that any policy not in compliance with the statutory requirements of the code shall be construed and applied as if in full compliance. Thus, whether or not the policies were in the exact form required by I.C. § 41-2401, they must be construed in conformance with the 1943 New York standard form.