Court Opinion

ID: 6786834
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-07-21 01:04:14.783185+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:02:57.484552
License: Public Domain

Moyer, C.J.,
concurring.
{¶ 64} This court has recently accepted jurisdiction over several cases, including the one at bar, in which a party has affirmatively requested that we overrule Scoti-Pontzer v. Liberty Mut. Fire Ins. Co. (1999), 85 Ohio St.3d 660, 710 N.E.2d 1116. Having accepted this issue for review,11 the court today stands at a crossroads. The court may follow the doctrine of stare decisis and attempt to minimize the impact of Scott-Pontzer by creating a patchwork of exceptions to and limitations of the holding therein. Alternatively, the court may depart from a rigid application of the doctrine and, in a single pronouncement, right that which is clearly wrong. See State ex rel. Lake Cty. Bd. of Commrs. v. Zupancic (1991), 62 Ohio St.3d 297, 300, 581 N.E.2d 1086. For the reasons stated in the majority opinion, I believe that the latter charts the better course toward restoring order to insurance law in Ohio.
{¶ 65} As a staunch and consistent advocate of stare decisis, I concur in the majority opinion only after considerable deliberation. I joined Justice Cook’s dissent in Scott-Pontzer because I believed that neither the commercial policy nor the excess policy should be construed to provide UIM coverage to an off-duty employee driving his spouse’s car. Under most circumstances, I would not vote to overrule a precedent established by the majority of this court. The doctrine of stare decisis, as I observed in Gallimore v. Children’s Hosp. Med. Ctr. (1993), 67 Ohio St.3d 244, 257, 617 N.E.2d 1052, embodies “a fundamental element of American jurisprudence — consistency and predictability.” (Moyer, C.J., dissenting.) My dissent in Gallimore, however, also recognized that “ ‘stare decisis is a principle of policy and not a mechanical formula of adherence to the latest decision, however recent and questionable, when such adherence involves collision with a prior doctrine more embracing in its scope, intrinsically sounder, and verified by experience.’ ” Id., quoting Helvering v. Hallock (1940), 309 U.S. 106, 119, 60 S.Ct. 444, 84 L.Ed. 604.
*233{¶ 66} The majority opinion refines this principle and, in so doing, sets forth a tripartite standard that honors stare decisis by preventing arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement of the law while relieving courts of the obligation to apply stare decisis with “petrifying rigidity.” Clark v. Southview Hosp. & Family Health Ctr. (1994), 68 Ohio St.3d 435, 438, 628 N.E.2d 46. We serve the bench and the bar by adopting a cogent, clear standard by which to test claims that our precedents should not be followed. There can be little doubt that Seott-Pontzer should be limited under this standard.
{¶ 67} Our decision today does not mark a change in my belief in the importance of the predictability and consistency produced by stare decisis. No one should assume that our decision heralds a new era in which prior cases of this court will be routinely or arbitrarily overruled. Our decision, rather, is a narrow response to a decision widely recognized as an error of law, which, if left uncorrected, would have continued to produce consequences that even the majority in Seott-Pontzer could not have foreseen. To that end, I am reminded of this court’s assertion over four decades ago:
{¶ 68} “ ‘[Clases and situations arise in which the need for a change is imminent. This becomes acutely apparent when a rule with dubious beginnings hangs on tenaciously in the face of a much needed change. Case after case will display the death throes of the old rule and at the same time the reluctance of the judges to overrule it.’ ” Gibbon v. Young Women’s Christian Assn, of Hamilton (1960), 170 Ohio St. 280, 289, 10 O.O.2d 334, 164 N.E.2d 563, quoting Feather, The Immunity of Charitable Institutions from Tort Liability (1959), 11 Baylor L.Rev. 86, 106.
{¶ 69} This observation could be no more prophetic than here: case after case before us reveals the impracticality of Seott-Pontzer and thus gives rise to the question of whether the reluctance of judges to overrule it will prevail in the face of a much needed change. I join the majority today as we create and apply a standard that will serve this court and all who are bound by its decision.
Lundberg Stratton, J., concurs in the foregoing concurring opinion.

. See, e.g., Monroe Guar. Ins. Co. v. Kuba, ease No. 2003-0213, 98 Ohio St.3d 1564, 2003-Ohio-2242, 787 N.E.2d 1229; Sekula v. Hartford Ins. Co., case No. 2003-0729, 99 Ohio St.3d 1510, 2003-Ohio-3957, 792 N.E.2d 198; McNeeley v. Pacific Employers Ins. Co., case No. 2003-1302, 100 Ohio St.3d 1437, 2003-Ohio-5513, 797 N.E.2d 515.