Court Opinion

ID: 9537269
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 07:15:05.266206+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:56:20.481910
License: Public Domain

Gunderson, J.,
concurring:
In most material part, appellant’s Complaint alleged: that respondent induced appellant to pay respondent $18.33, by falsely representing it would issue appellant a “Home Confinement Benefit Rider”; that thereafter appellant was confined to her home, following open heart surgery, thereby becoming entitled to $214.28 in benefits; that respondent then refused to pay appellant, claiming she did not have coverage for home confinement benefits, because respondent had never issued a rider to her; that such acts constituted fraud; and that appellant, “who is under doctor’s care for her heart condition has been unreasonably subjected to unnecessary strains, aggravation, frustration, financial pressures, fear, and physical stresses due to defendants’ [sic] unreasonable, unjustifiable, and fraudulent activities.” In addition to special damages in the amount of $214.28, appellant’s Complaint alleged and prayed for general compensatory damages in the sum of $25,000, and punitive damages in the sum of $250,000, it being alleged that the latter sum was appropriate in view of respondent’s alleged net worth of $1,500,000.
Viewed as a complaint based on fraud, I am inclined to consider these allegations sufficiently- specific to satisfy NRCP 9(b). In any event, without according controlling significance to the Complaint’s mention of fraud, I suggest the other allegations state an action for mental distress caused by bad faith refusal to pay policy proceeds. See, for example: Crisci v. Security Insurance Co. of New Haven, Conn., 426 P.2d 173 *707(Cal. 1967); Wetherbee v. United Insurance Company of America, 71 Cal.Rptr. 764 (Cal.App. 1968); Fletcher v. Western National Life Insurance Co., 89 Cal.Rptr. 78 (Cal. App. 1970).
However, assuming arguendo that the Complaint was so inartistic that neither of these theories of action was sufficiently alleged, both were certainly suggested. Hence, if it was not error to dismiss appellant’s Complaint, it surely was error to refuse leave to amend.