Court Opinion

ID: 9648944
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 14:39:11.889789+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:06.718740
License: Public Domain

COOPER, Justice,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I concur with that portion of the majority opinion which holds that the evidence in this case was sufficient to support the verdict of the jury. I dissent from that portion of the opinion which denies USAA its jural right of indemnity1 for the same reasons expressed in my dissenting opinion in Nationwide Mut. Ins. Co. v. State Farm Automobile Ins. Co., Ky., 973 S.W.2d 56, 59-61 (1998).
State Farm was the liability carrier for the alleged tortfeasor, Donahoe, and willingly offered to pay its policy limits of $50,000.00 to settle Kramer’s claim against Donahoe. Kramer agreed to accept this offer, but desired to retain the right to pursue her UIM claim against USAA Following the arcane procedure devised in Coots v. Allstate Ins. Co., Ky., 853 S.W.2d 895 (1993), USAA was required to pay Kramer the $50,000.00 offered by State Farm or otherwise forfeit its jural right of indemnity against Donahoe in the event Kramer received a verdict in excess of State Farm’s policy limits. As we now know, the jury found that Donahoe was not at fault in the accident, thus neither State Farm nor USAA owed anything to Kramer. Kramer, of course, can retain the $50,000.00 settlement negotiated by State Farm but paid by USAA Under this set of facts, both logic and Coots, 853 S.W.2d at 902, dictate that State Farm, the liability carrier, which had primary coverage and which was willing to pay its policy limits to settle Kramer’s claim, should reimburse the substituted payment to USAA, the UIM carrier, which had excess coverage and which was unwilling to pay Kramer anything, but was required to do so to protect its jural right of indemnity. Nevertheless, our decision in Nationwide, supra, requires USAA to forfeit its property in order to protect what we have deemed to be a constitutional right. In my view, this result is nothing less than a deprivation of property without due process of law, which is proscribed by the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution and by Sections 1 and 26 of the Constitution of Kentucky. Cf. City of Louisville v. Kuhn, 284 Ky. 684, 145 S.W.2d 851, 853 (1940). See also BMW of North America, Inc., v. Gore, 517 U.S. 559, 116 S.Ct. 1589, 134 L.Ed.2d 809 (1996), holding that due *784process can be violated by state judicial procedures as well as by legislative enactments. “To punish a person because he has done what the law plainly allows him to do is a due process violation of the most basic sort.” Id., 517 U.S. at 572, 116 S.Ct. at 1597-98, n. 19, quoting Bordenkircher v. Hayes, 434 U.S. 357, 363, 98 S.Ct. 663, 668, 54 L.Ed.2d 604 (1978).
GRAVES, J., joins this opinion, concurring in part and dissenting in part.

. While the author of this dissenting opinion does not subscribe to the jural rights doctrine, Williams v. Wilson, Ky., 972 S.W.2d 260, 269-76 (1998) (dissenting opinion), if such a doctrine is to exist in this Commonwealth, it must be applied with consistency. The right of indemnity has been determined by this Court to be a jural right. Kentucky Util. Co. v. Jackson Co. R.E.C ,C., Ky., 438 S.W.2d 788, 790 (1968).