Court Opinion

ID: 9452970
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 17:58:20.96825+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:33:26.410483
License: Public Domain

KNOCH, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
I must respectfully disagree with the majority. I would affirm the judgment in this case. It is uncontroverted that the insured Richard Walker intentionally furnished false and misleading information to the plaintiff. I cannot agree that actual proved prejudice in the form of a “less favorable” tort judgment is essential to plaintiff’s recovery under Indiana law in the light of the Johnson case. When the majority assert that prejudice must be established under Johnson, it seems to me that a strained interpretation is being placed on the statement in that opinion. The Court there said: (p. 715)
“A technical or inconsequential lack of cooperation has often been held insufficient to void the policy and the lack of cooperation to be sufficient must be in some substantial and material respect. Noncooperation must be material. Prejudice must be shown by insurer. 7 Am.Jur.2d, Automobile Insurance, §§ 176, 181, pp. 508, 509, 517. See also 60 A.L.R.2d 1138, 1150.”
The repudiation of a statement which if true would constitute a defense to the action can hardly be called a technical or inconsequential lack of cooperation. Surely deliberately misleading information is as prejudicial per se as failure to attend a trial as in the Stanley case.
Nor can I agree that there are any factual disputes which might form the basis of a waiver by the plaintiff. The factual allegations of the Complaint filed by Dorothy Walker were no notice that the apparently complete defense asserted *553by the insured was a lie. Similarly I see no support for a finding of waiver in the cautionary procedure of taking additional statements from the insured, who was bound to make full and frank disclosure to the plaintiff, to ascertain whether he had in fact deliberately lied to the plaintiff and thus failed to perform an important condition precedent to enforcement of the contract for his own benefit.