Court Opinion

ID: 9796481
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 03:58:21.575585+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:50:23.193292
License: Public Domain

MATTHEWS, Justice,
with whom EASTAUGH, Justice, joins, concurring.
In this case the plaintiff settled claims with two defendants for $106,000.1 The subsequent verdict against the remaining defendant determined that plaintiff's total recoverable loss was $28,500. Because of the settlements plaintiff has already re*649ceived over three times more than what he is entitled to. The question in this case is whether he may obtain an additional $9,500 from the remaining defendant.
Today's opinion answers this question in the affirmative. It relies on the recently decided case of Petrolane, Inc. v. Robles.2 Petrolane held that AS 09.17.080(d) (effective in 1989) precluded offsetting prior settlements from a judgment where an offset is needed to avoid a double recovery. Justice Eastaugh wrote a dissent in Petrolane in which I joined.3 The dissent took the posttion that the court's opinion was wrong as a matter of statutory construction, precedent, and policy.
Petrolane now stands as a decision of this court and as such it has precedential effect. Today's opinion is right in holding that it controls the outcome of this case. Based on the principle of stare decisis I join in the result that today's opinion reaches even though I remain convinced that Petrolane was wrongly decided.4
As matters now stand the long-standing policy prohibiting double recoveries has been eliminated. Plaintiffs who have received all that they should receive as determined by a jury can receive duplicate (and triplicate) payments. The reasons cited in support of this policy-that plaintiffs bear the risk of settling for too little and that permitting double recovery facilitates settlement-seem insubstantial. Settling for too little has always been a risk for plaintiffs. They might lose in the trial against the remaining defendant, or a favorable judgment might prove to be uncollectable. Settlements occur because of risk-reward calculations that remain complex, with or without the possibility of a double recovery. Neither of these reasons approaches in force the reason underlying the policy against double recoveries: the coercive force of the law should not require a party to pay for a loss for which full compensation has already been paid.
I believe that permitting double recoveries continues to be bad public policy and that the fact that double recoveries are now permitted is an unintended consequence of the tort reform movement. Nonetheless, this is where Petrolane leaves us. If there is to be a change, it must come through the legislative process.

. In round numbers.

. 154 P.3d 1014 (Alaska 2007).

. Id. at 1028.

. Stare decisis is at its strongest in cases involving the interpretation of statutes. Unlike cases involving the constitution, the legislature may override an incorrect statutory interpretation. There is thus less justification in such cases for a court to overturn its own rulings. See William Eskridge, Overruling Statutory Precedents, 76 Geo. L.J. 1361 (1988).