Court Opinion

ID: 9771322
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 16:39:14.581453+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:31:28.577263
License: Public Domain

Steele Hays, Justice, dissenting. The question is whether an insurer’s subrogation claim for insurance benefits paid to an insured under a major medical policy is enforceable where the policy fails to expressly provide for subrogation. We have addressed the issue of equitable subrogation in a number of cases and recognized the doctrine. Trinity Universal Ins. Co. v. State Farm Mutual Auto Ins. Co., 246 Ark. 1021, 441 S.W.2d 95 (1969); Shipley v. Northwestern Mutual Ins. Co., 244 Ark. 1159, 428 S.W.2d 268 (1968); Baker v. Leigh, 238 Ark. 918, 385 S.W.2d 790 (1965); Cooper v. Home Owners Loan Corporation, 197 Ark. 839, 126 S.W.2d 112 (1939). “Perhaps no doctrine of equity jurisprudence is more beneficent in its operation, and perhaps none stands in higher favor.” 73 Am. Jur. 2d Subrogation § 7, p. 603. The majority prefers a Massachusetts case, Frost v. Porter Leasing Corp., 386 Mass. 425, 436 N.E.2d 387 (1982), to our own precedents. I respectfully disagree.