Court Opinion

ID: 9765493
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 04:03:56.972523+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:10.441554
License: Public Domain

*758VANCE, Justice,
dissenting.
I fully agree with the majority that neither the principles of waiver nor estoppel is relevant to this case. Nevertheless, the appellant is entitled to recover, in my opinion, on the basis of an offer to settle the claim by the insurance company which was accepted by the policyholder.
There was never any dispute here about coverage of the loss by the policy. The only dispute was as to the amount of the loss. The company made an offer to settle the dispute, and the offer was not withdrawn, nor did it contain a time limit as to when it might be accepted. The offer was accepted. In my view, the offer and the acceptance of the offer constituted a contract binding upon the parties. Although the policyholder could not maintain the lawsuit upon the policy after the expiration of the time specified in the policy, I see no reason to bar a suit upon the contract.
The majority opinion tries to make the case that the one-year limitation for suit upon the policy also was a conditional limitation upon the right to accept the offer of settlement.
This is a strained interpretation of the offer for the benefit of the insurance company because there is no wording in the offer to settle which expressly states that the offer must be accepted within the one-year period. Such an intention can be reached only by implication from vague language about restrictions upon the policy, one of which was the unspecified one-year limitation.
If the insurance company had intended that this offer to settle would remain open only for one year from the date of loss, that fact should have been plainly and expressly stated as a condition of the offer, not merely concealed in some vague language which might or might not be apparent to one reading the offer.
This was admittedly a loss covered by a policy upon which the premium had been paid and which the company willingly offered to pay over $17,000 for the loss.
This court, by reading something into the language of the settlement offer which is not expressly stated, completely absolves the insurer of all liability. I would hold that the insurer made a valid offer to settle the dispute as to the amount of loss, that the offer to settle was accepted by the policyholder, and that a contract was thus created whereby the insurer bound itself to pay to the policyholder the sum. agreed upon. I would further hold that a suit may be maintained to enforce that contract.