Court Opinion

ID: 9718499
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 07:25:33.896728+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:59.695525
License: Public Domain

DeBRULER, Justice,
dissenting.
As pointed out by Judge Buchanan for the Second District, Hawkins v. Auto-Owners Insurance Co. (1991), Ind.App, 579 N.E.2d 118, this declaratory judgment of the trial court is not a summary judgment and should be reversed because it is based upon determinations of material issues of fact without a trial. Ind.Trial Rule 56; I.C. 34-4-10-9; Bochnowski v. Peoples Federal S. & L. (1991), Ind., 571 N.E.2d 282; Brandon v. State (1976), 264 Ind. 177, 340 N.E.2d 756; City of Muncie v. United Nat. Ins. Co. (1991), Ind.App., 564 N.E.2d 979. I would reverse and remand this case to the trial court to afford the guardian of Lewis an opportunity to file an answer and to have a trial at which a trier of fact would resolve the material issues of fact. The main factual issues to be so resolved would necessarily include whether the insured, Stephens, expected or intended the bodily injury suffered by Lewis, and possibly whether Stephens was insane at the time if raised by answer. I am willing to say that at such trial, the statute, 1.0. 34-3-18-1, should be given its proper force, which is, in my opinion, that it renders relevant judgments of convictions based upon trials admissible on the same basis that relevant judgments of convictions based upon guilty pleas had for many years been admitted. Furthermore, I find nothing in the statute rendering the entire transcript of the criminal trial evidence that is per se admissible, and I agree with others who have studied this statute and who have failed to find legislative intent within it to make evidence of a criminal *1360judgment conclusive proof of any facts of which it may be probative. State Farm Fire and Cas. Co. v. Miles, 780 F.Supp. 1462 (S.D.Ind.1990). The majority opinion imposes a statutory estoppel where none exists.
DICKSON, J., concurs.