Court Opinion

ID: 9532041
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:17:25.11757+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:28:39.585544
License: Public Domain

HENRIOD, Justice
(dissenting).
I dissent.
The main opinion’s thrust is that the trial court “failed to distinguish between an unknown injury and unknown consequences of a known injury.”
I think the trial court did not have to make any such distinction under the plain language of the release. I think the author of the main opinion, not the trial court, erroneously has made a distinction in the terms of the release which no syllogistic reasoning possibly can justify. It has prevented the parties to the release from indulging their legal privilege to contract as they choose.1
What does the release say? It releases Merrill from any claims growing out of any or all
“known and unknozvn, foreseen and unforeseen * * * injuries * * * and the consequences thereof. * * * ”
This language is in the conjunctive and clearly releases claims for injuries and the consequences of either known or zmknozvn injuries, — without distinction or reservation whatsoever. But the main opinion volunteers such distinction, — made neither by the parties nor the contract. The main opinion makes absolutely no reference whatever to the clear language adverted to above, — the very meat of the contract, and nowhere in the opinion is any attempt made to point out where and in what respect such language or any other language in the contract supports the thesis and gratuity of the main opinion.
In view of the sharp disagreement in this dissent and that of the main opinion with respect to interpretation of the terms of the release, something should be said about the authorities cited by Mr. Justice Ellett which he claims support his conclusion.
*166He says “The great majority of cases since the turn of the century have recognized this distinction.” Not so. The very first case he cites is one of our own Utah cases, Anderson v. O. S. L. Ry.2 I challenge the author of the main opinion to point out any language in that case that recognizes any such distinction. On the contrary, the law of that case is found in the following language:
Of course, a release, however general the language, does not cover anything except the consequential results flowing from the accident in question, but it does include all the consequences of that accident. If such were not the law, a single cause of action could be split up into a number of actions. It is quite elementary that that may not be done. [Emphasis added.]
The Anderson case, decided in 1916, presently is the Utah law on releases. It was a unanimous decision, and for over half a century has not been overruled, modified, or even criticized. It is no authority, in any sense of the word, that supports the proposition erroneously espoused by the main opinion. In truth, as late as 1961 the Utah Law Review, Spring 1961, Vol. 7, No. 3, “Mistake in the Utah Law of Contracts,” p. 315, cites the Anderson case as being the law in Utah, saying that “a party executing a release from liability on account of personal injury suffered was not permitted to rescind such release because of mistake as to the extent of the injury.” No distinction was suggested in the article between "unknown injury” and "unknown consequences of a known injury.”
The Anderson case is a case in point that should be controlling here in affirming the trial court.
The second case cited by the main opinion is Kirchgestner v. D. & R. G. W. R. Co.3 That case is strictly a Federal Employers’ Liability Act case,4 and this dissent concedes that it is governed by federal statutory and case law. It is not, however, applicable to this case or any other state case since Anderson v. O. S. L. Ry.5 Nowhere in the Kirchgestner case is found any “distinction” such as made in the instant case, yet it is cited as one of the “great” majority of cases supporting such “distinction.” This seems to be inaccurate reporting, as it was in citing the Anderson case in the main opinion. It is highly significant that the Utah Law Review article did not mention the Kirchgestner case in this respect.6 It is even more sig*167nificant that the Law Review article did mention the Anderson case favorably as being the state law. Also, it is interesting to note that the Kirchgestner case at no time mentioned or even discussed the Anderson case.
The only quotation of the language of the Kirchgestner case in purported support of the main opinion’s so-called “distinction” has no application to the instant case. The main opinion cannot be serious in its quotation, since such quotation necessarily would include unknown consequences of a known injury as being the subject of rescission because of mistake, which the main opinion concedes are barred by a release irrespective of any urgence by plaintiff of mutual mistake. In espousing such language, the main opinion, with complete inconsistency, destroys its argument about distinguishing “unknown” injury from consequences of a “known” injury.
It appears that great liberality is extended under the federal act in mistake cases, favoring the voiding of releases based thereon, — perhaps because of the liberality of the act itself, what with its provisions eliminating defenses of assumption of risk and contributory negligence, and because of the comparative negligence aspect of its cases which are not applicable in our state and others. But neither these facts, nor the Kirchgestner case can support the main opinion here, since the matter is governed by state, not federal law.
The next case cited in the main opinion, Hoopes v. Lamb,7 involving aggravation of a known injvtry, did recognize the distinction but certainly reserved the question of unknown injury when it said, “It is unnecessary for us to decide whether the parties * * * intended in fact to cover injuries both known or unknown.” None7 theless it did hold the release to be binding on consequences of a known injury, leaving the other horn of the distinction for future impaling considerations.
The only other case cited in the main opinion was Ranta v. Rake,8 which adheres to a school of thought where the plaintiff may disavow his written contract when it turns out that he made an improvident settlement. It, like the main opinion here, simply flouts the well-established rule in Utah and elsewhere that a person may execute a contract and be bound by its terms, although he made a bad bargain. It simply espouses cases that depart from contract terms on the ground they are -sui juris,9 that the facts show mutual mistake where they are at best unilateral,10 and other “I don’t give a damn for contract principles” cases,11 all of which reflect *168empathy for one who makes a bad bargain, with' utter disrespect for written word or signature. These cases do not reflect “the great majority of decisions” recognizing the distinction stated and followed by the main opinion. They include cases that relieve from consequences of a known injury or an unknown injury. Eliminate the Anderson case, the Kirchgestner case, the
Ranta case, the F.E.L.A. cases and the “I don’t give a damn” cases, which do not recognize the distinction to which the main opinion subscribes, and you will find that “the great majority” mentioned may be but a handful of free-pass, give-away fans in the bleachers.
It is interesting to note that in Ranta v. Rake, in recognizing the disagreeing Oregon case of Wheeler v. White,12 but rejecting it, offered an apologia for it by saying, “It will be noted there was a strong dissent to this opinion.” The Idaho case did not tender any equivalent cum laude to the two dissents in the 3-2 Ranta squeaker.
No doubt this decision will surprise insurance companies and some of the best legal minds on construction of contracts, particularly insurance contracts, and more particularly the standard insurance release, some of whose innards now have been removed in Utah by a legal scalpel of illogic and gratuitous, but unwarranted interpretation of words.
If the results called for in written instruments are unpalatable, the legislature might flavor it a bit but it is not our job, absent language in the contract making it clearly against public policy. The main opinion here urges no legislative interdiction or justification for its conclusion, nor any language that taints the release as being offensive to public policy.
What the main opinion does is to prevent any effective or lasting settlement for injuries of which the parties are unaware at the time of settlement (even though the written release signed by the releasor says such injuries and the consequences thereof forever are barred), but that a claim for the consequences of a known injury is forever barred, — albeit such consequences may reflect an injury worse by a hundredfold than that reflected by the consequences of an unknown injury. Such a result simply is ridiculous, especially where both parties solemnly have put their signatures to a document that clearly releases any claim for any injury or the consequences thereof whether the injury be known or unknown at the time of settlement and release.
*169Aside from what has been said ahoye, it is diffficult for this writer to understand why anyone is talking about mutual mistake at all. Plaintiff himself developed the facts through his own physician, who deified them with his signature. Assuming his diagnosis to have been wrong, the insurance company wasn’t mistaken about anything. It simply paid an amount which was acceptable to its assured, and conceivably would have paid a different amount if the second-guessing physician had performed the operation before the release had been executed. No one in this case urges that the insurance agent practiced any fraud, deceit, coercion, concealment or double dealing of any kind. Under the facts of this case, and as a matter of law there could be nothing more than a unilateral mistake of fact, — probably none at all. It is rather absurd even to cogitate that a nonexpert, lay insurance agent, with no medical background, would be a party to a mutual mistake where he relied on the diagnosis of the releasor’s own doctor, unless it is urged that he was guilty of fraud, concealment, coercion and the like, —as was not the case here.
If one could circumvent the plain, unambiguous terms of a release under the circumstances of the instant case, where there is no hint of fraud, coercion or other ulterior motive, but only a present mutual desire to settle a claim at arm’s length between a sort of willing buyer and a willing seller, neither under compulsion, why would it not be as logical, possible, practical, to sanction the same kind of circumvention, if the claim had been reduced to judgment after a fair trial, which would allow, after judgment, another and another trial and judgment ad infinitum on the advent of successively discovered, unanticipated complications ?
The language and effect of a release, in Utah, has been relegated to the realm of the ridiculous.

. This court said in Ephraim Theatre Co. v. Hawk, 7 Utah 2d 163, 321 P.2d 221 (1958), as we have said and reiterated dozens of times, that:
“Generally speaking, neither of the parties, nor the court, has any right to ignore or modify conditions which are clearly expressed merely because it may subject one of the parties to hardship, but they must be enforced ‘in accordance with the intention as * * manifested by the language used by the parties to the contract. Murphy v. Salt Lake City, 65 Utah 295, 236 P. 680, 683 (1925).’ ” See also Restatement Restitution, § 11(1).

. 47 Utah 614, 155 P. 446 (1916). See 171 A.L.R.2d 100, § 5, citing Anderson v. O.S.L. Ry.

. 118 Utah 20, 218 P.2d 685 (1950).

. 45 U.S.C.A. § 51 et seq. (in effect long before the Kirchgestner case).

. Noto 2, supra.

. Apparently or almost obviously because that case was an P.E.L.A. case subject to federal law and not a state case subject to state law.

. 102 Ariz. 335, 429 P.2d 447 (1967).

. 91 Idaho 376, 421 P.2d 747 (1967).

. 71 A.L.R.2d §§ 2, 3; Clancy v. Pacenti, 15 Ill.App.2d 171, 145 N.E.2d 802 (1957).

. 71 A.L.R.2d § 4.

. Id., et seq.

. 229 Or. 360, 366 P.2d 527 (1961). The dissenting opinion discusses this ease at some length, and it needs no discussion here, the author of this dissent agreeing with the observations and decision of the Wheeler case as well as all of the observations and conclusions incorporated in Mr. Justice Callistcr’s dissent.