Court Opinion

ID: 9541385
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:25:01.285606+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:02:48.505251
License: Public Domain

HALL, Chief Justice
(concurring and dissenting):
I concur in affirming the denial of attorney fees and costs to plaintiffs. However, I dissent from that part of the Court’s opinion which reverses the trial court’s modification of the judgment against South Central.
The very purpose of the Utah Automobile No-Fault Insurance Act1 is to prevent double payment for the same loss and thus to avoid increased costs of insurance coverage.2 In furtherance of that worthy objective, the trial court appropriately modified the judgment against South Central by the specific, identifiable and undisputed amount of the PIP benefits received by plaintiffs prior to the time they initiated this lawsuit.
Plaintiffs filed this action prior to this Court’s decision in Allstate Insurance Company v. Ivie3 when it was common practice to plead for and recover all damages, including those covered by PIP payments previously received under first party insurance benefits. The tortfeasor’s liability insurer typically made payment in two separate checks, one drawn solely in favor of the injured party covering general damages, and the other drawn jointly in favor of the injured party and his no-fault insurer covering prior PIP payments. This procedure afforded the no-fault insurer the right of subrogation to recover the PIP payments previously advanced to its insured.
*1310The foregoing procedure was followed in the instant case,4 except that plaintiffs retained the PIP check, not for the purpose of effecting a double recovery, but to compel South Central to contribute toward their costs and attorney fees in recovering the PIP payments for State Farm. Consequently, as contemplated by Ivie,5 State Farm sought and obtained reimbursement of the sum of $4,347.71 from Wausau through arbitration proceedings. This placed Wausau in the unexpected and inequitable position of having to make a double payment of PIP damages. The trial court’s subsequent modification of the initial judgment, reducing the amount thereof by the sum of the PIP payments, constituted an appropriate effort on the part of the court to rectify its error and to comply with the recent Ivie decision. In modifying the judgment, the court relied upon the provisions of Rule 60(b)(6) and (7),6 which read in pertinent part as follows:
On motion and upon such terms as are just, the court may in the furtherance of justice relieve a party or his legal representative from a final judgment, order, or proceeding for the following reasons: . .. (6) the judgment has been satisfied, released, or discharged, or a prior judgment upon which it is based has been reversed or otherwise vacated, or it is no longer equitable that the judgment should have prospective application; or (7) any other reason justifying relief from the operation of the judgment. The motion shall be made within a reasonable time ....
The main opinion concludes that the trial court erred in relying on the foregoing rules and suggests that the only subsection of Rule 60(b) which would have supported a motion to modify in this case was subsection (1) which allows relief from a judgment rendered by “mistake, inadvertence, surprise or excusable neglect,” and requires such a motion be made within three months of the date of the judgment. South Central’s motion to modify was made on June 30, 1981, more than six months after judgment. Therefore, it would not qualify under subsection (1). However, under the unique facts and circumstances of this case, the need to modify did not arise within the three-month limitation period. In light of the fact that this case was tried pursuant to the pre-Ivie procedure, Wausau had no reason to believe that the check it had issued to plaintiffs and State Farm jointly would not eventually be endorsed to State Farm under the customary principles of subrogation. The prospect of having to make a double payment if the PIP damages did not become a reality until the arbitration decision was reached on June 10, 1981, which was five months after judgment. Wausau’s need for relief did not exist prior to the arbitration decision, and promptly thereafter (on June 30,1981) South Central brought its motion to modify based on Rule 60(b)(6) and (7).
The main opinion accurately recites the general rule of law that there must be a day when a judgment becomes final and litigation ceases, and that the filing of a satisfaction of judgment usually accomplishes that purpose.7 However, a satisfaction of judgment does not conclusively establish the finality of the matter. Upon *1311proper motion and adequate reasons, a satisfaction of judgment can be set aside.8 Equitable principles govern the vacation of an entry of satisfaction of judgment just as they do a motion to modify a judgment.9 Although no specific motion to set aside the satisfaction of judgment was made in this case, it was necessarily set aside pursuant to the modification of the judgment and upon equitable principles.
I agree with the further reasoning of the main opinion that the possibility of prejudice to the nonmoving party increases significantly when the judgment has already been paid and satisfied, but that reasoning has no application to the particular facts of this case. What possible prejudice could inure to plaintiffs by invalidating the $4,347.71 PIP cheek issued by Wausau, which plaintiffs never expected to retain, and which has never been negotiated? The check is still uncashed, and now that the instrument is more than six months old, by statute it need not be honored.10 It is therefore not only reasonable, but incumbent upon this Court to apply principles of equity in this matter and sustain the reduction of judgment against South Central, thus fulfilling the objective of the law without causing undue prejudice to any party.
The judgment of the trial court is supported by the practice followed in the federal courts. Rule 60(b)(5) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure is identical to Rule 60(b)(6) of the Utah Rules of Civil Procedure, and the provision “no longer equitable that the judgment should have prospective application” has been construed as follows:
The reference in clause (5) to judgment which it is “no longer equitable” to apply prospectively invokes equitable principles for relief from the prospective operation of a judgment which long antedate the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Those principles are invariably applied by the courts in construing Rule 60(b)(5), and the leading decisions explicating those principles bear exposition. For example, it is established that a change in conditions, whether a fact or by subsequently enacted statute, may warrant relief from a final judgment, but only from the prospective application of that judgment. [Emphasis added.]
14 A.L.R.Fed. 309 § 3(b).
Justice in this case demands that the principles of equity be applied. There has been an obvious change in conditions. The Ivie decision came down while this case was pending in the trial court, changing the customary procedure followed in applying the no-fault statute. This prompted State Farm’s otherwise unexpected arbitration proceeding against Wausau to recover the PIP payments which had already been paid jointly to the plaintiffs and State Farm in accordance with the trial court’s judgment. Certainly, these were changed circumstances within the contemplation of the Rule.11
Furthermore, the judgment still has prospective application. This is so notwithstanding the fact that the judgment has been paid and a satisfaction of judgment filed, because the $4,347.71 check representing the PIP payments previously made by Wausau remains unnegotiated.
In such circumstances, the sage advice of Justice Cardozo regarding the application of Rule 60(b)(5), supra, has full application:
A court does not abdicate its power to revoke or modify its mandate if satisfied that what it has been doing has been turned through changing circumstances into an instrument of wrong.
286 U.S. at 114, 52 S.Ct. at 462.
I would affirm the judgment of the trial court in its entirety.

. U.C.A., 1953, § 31-41-1, et seq.

. Allstate Insurance Co. v. Anderson, Utah, 608 P.2d 235 (1980).

.Utah, 606 P.2d 1197; Ivie was decided February 7, 1980, after this action was filed, but before it was tried and decided on December 23, 1980.

. In apparent unawareness of the intervening decision in Ivie.

. In Ivie, the Court interpreted the procedure contemplated by the no-fault statute, supra, as follows:
[T]he injured party should plead only for those damages for which he has not received reparation under his first party insurance benefits.
Ivie at 1200.
[S]imilarly, section 11 in the Utah No-Fault Insurance Act cannot be interpreted as conferring on the No-Fault insurer a right of subrogation to the funds received by its insured for personal injuries. Section 11 grants the no-fault insurer a limited, equitable right to seek reimbursement in arbitration proceeding against the liability insurer.
Ivie at 1202.

. Utah Rules of Civil Procedure.

. Hollingsworth v. Fire Insurance Exchange, Utah, 655 P.2d 637 (1982).

. George Thatcher Corporation v. Bullen, 108 Utah 562, 162 P.2d 421 (1945); Cason v. Glass Bottle Blowers Association, 113 Cal.App.2d 263, 247 P.2d 931 (1952); 47 Am.Jur.2d Judgments § 1032.

. George Thatcher Corporation v. Bullen, supra, n. 6; see also, Utah C.V. Federal Credit Union v. Jenkins, Utah, 528 P.2d 1187 (1974).

. U.C.A., 1953, § 70A-4-404.

. See 14 A.L.R.Fed. 309, § 5[a]; see also, 77 Moore’s Federal Practice ¶ 60.26[4]; see also, United States v. Swift & Co., 286 U.S. 106, 52 S.Ct. 460, 76 L.Ed. 999 (1932).