Court Opinion

ID: 9530135
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:57:29.984566+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:28:00.394746
License: Public Domain

MR. JUSTICE UNDERWOOD, specially concurring: The orders defaulting Valleroy and Cheek in this declaratory judgment action are not, as urged by the insurer, res judicata as to the plaintiffs. Those orders were simple default orders which did not purport to declare the rights of the parties nor to constitute final judgments. Had they done so, with notice to the Millers, a different question would be presented. I agree that an insurer should be relieved of liability to innocent third parties by the insured’s breach of his contractual duty only if the insurer has been prejudiced by that breach. In this case the insured lied to the police and the insurer as to the identity of the driver of the car at the time plaintiffs were struck. Likewise the other occupants of the insured car gave the insurer the same false information. Their credibility as witnesses in the future trial of this case has, it seems to me, been largely destroyed. As a result, the insurer may well have been severely prejudiced in defending against plaintiff’s claim, since the testimony of the witnesses upon whom it might normally rely is now subject to impeachment on the identity of the driver of the insured vehicle. The ultimate effect of that impeachment will, of course, affect a jury’s assessment of the balance of the testimony of those witnesses. Concealment from the insurer of the true facts for some six months constituted, in my judgment, a clear breach of the cooperation clause. The insurer, however, neither alleges in this declaratory judgment action nor argues that it has been prejudiced by that breach. Consequently I agree that the judgment of the appellate court should be affirmed.