Court Opinion

ID: 9749955
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 14:07:38.0988+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:26:00.590270
License: Public Domain

BENKE, Acting P. J., Dissenting.
People v. Bernal (2002) 101 Cal.App.4th 155, 165-168 [123 Cal.Rptr.2d 622], held that a court must offset against a defendant’s direct restitution obligation monies paid by his insurance company to his victim for losses subject to the restitution order. In the present case the majority extends Bernal by requiring an offset of monies paid to defendant Jason Jennings’s victim by what, in the context of direct restitution law and the record in this case, can only reasonably be described as his mother’s insurance company. I disagree with Bernal and I disagree with the majority’s extension of its holding. I, therefore, respectfully, dissent.
A. Bernal
Penal Code section 1202.4, subdivision (a)(1), provides: “It is the intent of the Legislature that a victim of crime who incurs any economic loss as a result of the commission of a crime shall receive restitution directly from any defendant convicted of that crime.” (Italics added.)
The statutory requirement of a defendant’s direct restitution to a victim rests on the concept that such direct payment will emphasize to the defendant the seriousness of the crime or crimes committed. As Bernal itself notes, “ ‘Restitution “is an effective rehabilitative penalty because it forces the defendant to confront, in concrete terms, the harm his actions have caused. Such a penalty will affect the defendant differently than a traditional fine, *60paid to the State as an abstract and impersonal entity, and often calculated without regard to the harm the defendant has caused. Similarly, the direct relation between the harm and the punishment gives restitution a more precise deterrent effect than a traditional fine.” [Citations.]’ [Citation.]” (People v. Bernal, supra, 101 Cal.App.4th at p. 162; see also, e.g., People v. Birkett (1999) 21 Cal.4th 226, 246 [87 Cal.Rptr.2d 205, 980 P.2d 912]; People v. Crow (1993) 6 Cal.4th 952, 957 [26 Cal.Rptr.2d 1, 864 P.2d 80]; In re Brittany L. (2002) 99 Cal.App.4th 1381, 1387-1388 [122 Cal.Rptr.2d 376].)
My objection to Bernal is that the nature of insurance is antithetical to a core purpose of direct restitution. Insurance is in essence a means of transferring, distributing and sharing risk. (1 Appleman on Insurance 2d (Holmes ed. 1996) ch. 1, §§ 1.2-1.4, pp. 3-23; see San Diego Housing Com. v. Industrial Indemnity Co. (2002) 95 Cal.App.4th 669, 684 [116 Cal.Rptr.2d 103]; Richardson v. GAB Business Services, Inc. (1984) 161 Cal.App.3d 519, 523 [207 Cal.Rptr. 519].) As such, insurance dilutes the monetary responsibility for an insured actor’s conduct and dissipates the direct monetary impact on actors for their civil, or in this case criminal, wrongdoing.
If rehabilitation and deterrence are core purposes of direct victim restitution, which I believe they are, then allowing a defendant to offset a direct restitution obligation with monies paid by his liability insurer effectively disengages the amount of direct restitution the defendant must pay from the calculation of the harm caused and thus steals from the restitution obligation its intended rehabilitative and deterrent effect.
The court in Bernal supports its conclusion that the monies paid a victim by the defendant’s insurer should be an offset against a restitution obligation by noting that if such offset is not allowed, the victim might receive a windfall. (People v. Bernal, supra, 101 Cal.App.4th at pp. 166-168.) As Bernal itself acknowledges, however, double recovery to the victim is permissible where the victim’s own insurance company pays the victim and the defendant is ordered to make full direct payment as well. (Id. at p. 166; see also People v. Birkett, supra, 21 Cal.4th at p. 246; People v. Hamilton (2003) 114 Cal.App.4th 932, 940-941 [8 Cal.Rptr.3d 190].) Moreover, California has long permitted windfalls when they are the by-product of socially useful devices. Thus, this state adheres in tort law to the collateral source doctrine (People v. Birkett, supra, 21 Cal.4th at p. 247, fn. 19) and statutorily *61supports the awarding of punitive damages. (Civ. Code, §§ 3294, 3294.5.) Since the Legislature has declared direct restitution a socially useful device, it is inconsequential that it may in some cases result in a crime victim receiving, to one degree or another, a windfall.
In addition to these fundamental differences with Bemal, I also have a somewhat narrower, but I believe significant, difficulty with its holding. Penal Code section 1202.4, subdivision (j), provides in part: “Restitution collected pursuant to this subdivision shall be credited to any other judgments for the same losses obtained against the defendant arising out of the crime for which the defendant was convicted.” Under this provision an insurer ultimately liable on a judgment is entitled to have its liability reduced by the amount of restitution paid by a criminal defendant. (See People v. Hamilton, supra, 114 Cal.App.4th at p. 942; People v. Clifton (1985) 172 Cal.App.3d 1165, 1168 [219 Cal.Rptr. 904].) The reverse is not true: the statute does not provide the criminal defendant with any credit for amounts paid on a civil judgment. {People v. Hamilton, supra, 114 Cal.App.4th at p. 942; People v. Clifton, supra, 172 Cal.App.3d at p. 1168.) Thus the Legislature has expressed a clear preference that payment come first and foremost from criminal defendants and only then from the myriad of other people and entities potentially liable on a civil judgment. Bernal of course reverses this statutory preference: if a trial court follows Bernal and gives a criminal defendant credit for a judgment paid by his insurer, the trial court will not be able to reduce, as required by Penal Code section 1202.4, subdivision (j), the amount of any civil judgment.1
B. Jennings
Accepting for the sake of argument that Bemal was correctly decided, I still could not join the majority opinion in this case since, in my view, it unjustifiably expands Bernal.
Noting that Penal Code section 1202.4, subdivision (a)(1), requires restitution be paid directly to the victim by the defendant, Bernal concludes that payments from the defendant’s liability carrier qualify as coming “directly from the defendant” because, “(1) the defendant procured the insurance, and unlike the other third party sources, its payments to the victim are not fortuitous but precisely what the defendant bargained for; (2) the defendant paid premiums to maintain the policy in force; (3) the defendant has a contractual right to have payments made by his insurance company to the *62victim, on his behalf; and (4) the defendant’s insurance company has no right of indemnity or subrogation against the defendant.” (People v. Bernal, supra, 101 Cal.App.4th at p. 168, italics added.)
It is logical, and of significance to the court in Bernal, that in order for an insurance policy to qualify as “direct payment” to a victim, the defendant must have both “procured” the policy and “paid for the premiums.” Only then can it be said the defendant has made something like direct restitution.
Even by Bernal’s definition, the payment of insurance monies to the victim here cannot reasonably be described as having come “directly from the defendant.” The facts of this case are clear. The defendant at the time of the crime was an impecunious college student. His college and living expenses were paid by his mother. The vehicle he was driving at the time of the crime was owned by and registered to his mother. He was a named insured on what even defense counsel described as his mother’s automobile insurance. There is no evidence at all that the defendant sought out or selected the insurance policy here. He did not get it or obtain it. Nor did he pay the premiums on the policy. Defense counsel conceded that the defendant did not pay the insurance premium in full “or anywhere near his proportion.” By declaration, defendant’s mother stated that the defendant worked during vacations and gave money to her to help offset his expenses, including the automobile insurance premiums. However, the record does not reflect what portion of the limited monies he gave his mother for general expenses were actually paid toward insurance. It appears his mother decided what she would use the money for and how much of it was to be used for any particular necessity at any particular time.
Given this state of the record, the trial court did not abuse its discretion in concluding the defendant was not an “insured” for purposes of Bernal. (People v. Draut (1999) 73 Cal.App.4th 577, 581 [86 Cal.Rptr.2d 469].)
The only basis upon which my colleagues can find reversible error is that the trial court failed to correctly apply Bernal so as to create an offset of medical expenses. As I have noted, faced as we are with the facts presented below, and faced as we are with the fully supported factual conclusion that the defendant neither personally procured nor purchased the policy here, the majority’s offset operates as a significant expansion of Bernal.
Respectfully, extending Bernal’s holding to anyone insured under an automobile insurance policy as long as the victim has been compensated, further dilutes Penal Code section 1202.4’s requirement of a “direct” payment from the defendant to the victim and extends the meaning of “procured” past any interpretation intended by Bernal.
*63Had the entire settlement here of $105,000 been allocated to medical expenses, the defendant could escape not only civil responsibility by virtue of an insurance company paying the amount owed, he could have escaped all personal responsibility for restitution. I .am not prepared to eliminate the sentencing court’s power and, equally important, its obligation under Penal Code 1202.4 to order direct restitution to victims and assure society that the defendant fully understands the import of his criminal conduct.
I would affirm the trial court’s order.
A petition for a rehearing was denied April 29, 2005, and respondent’s petition for review by the Supreme Court was denied July 27, 2005. Kennard, J., was of the opinion that the petition should be granted.

 Bernal also appears to allow individuals to insure themselves for automobile-related crimes they may commit, something that is prohibited elsewhere in the law. (See, e.g., Civ. Code, § 2773; Ins. Code, § 533; J. C. Penney Casualty Ins. Co. v. M. K. (1991) 52 Cal.3d 1009, 1020-1025 [278 Cal.Rptr. 64, 804 P.2d 689].)