Court Opinion

ID: 9779175
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 21:39:20.030304+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:33:23.010625
License: Public Domain

George D. Ellis, Special Associate Justice, concurring. I am in full agreement with the majority opinion. My purpose for writing separately is to emphasize a single aspect of this case. By enacting Ark. Code Ann. § 23-79-208, the legislative branch of our government has established a strong and firm public policy in favor of reasonably prompt payment of insurance claims. Likewise, the judicial branch of government has established a parallel and competing public policy against shotgun-style litigation in such cases, by requiring that the plaintiff recover the amount sued for. The legislature has been in session innumerable times over many decades since the beginning of our rule requiring recovery of the amount sued for, and has never taken the occasion to change our rule. Southwestern Insurance Company v. Camp, 253 Ark. 886, 489 S.W.2d 498 (1973). Problems with the “amount sued for” rule, however, have begun to surface, particularly in the last 20 years or so, due to the increasing use of the phrase “exact amount” in describing the plaintiff’s burden. See generally Farm Bureau Insurance Co. v. Paladino, 264 Ark. 311, 571 S.W.2d 86 (1978); Ford Life Insurance Co. v. Jones, 262 Ark. 881, 563 S.W.2d 399 (1978). Such a phrase has real meaning regarding, for example, a property damage claim in which the dispute centers around extent of damage. However, “exact amount” in the context of the facts of this case lends little to the process of public policy analysis. This is so because the case involves life insurance policies with face amounts, and additionally, accidental death provisions; loans against two of the policies; a decreasing term benefit in the third policy; interest accruing daily on the benefits; and interest accruing daily on the loans. To require a plaintiff to be ready on a given day to compute the “exact amount” from the above list of variables, particularly when most of the information is within the exclusive knowledge of the insurance company, is to reduce the law to a bingo game. I do not believe that such was ever the intent of the legislature in enacting Ark. Code Ann. § 23-79-208, anymore than I believe that such was this court’s intent in using such language as “exact amount.” The majority opinion correctly points out that “amount sued for” does not and cannot include prejudgment interest, policy loans constituting a setoff, and the like. First, such items simply should not be characterized as proceeds of the policy. And second, to require plaintiff to plead more specifically than was done here would be to require plaintiff to meet an impossible burden. For that reason, I concur with the majority’s holding, which is, as I understand it, that plaintiff met the “amount sued for” requirement by stating his prayer for the face amounts of the policy and interest, less any setoffs for the decreasing term benefit and policy loans. I believe that both policy goals set out above are well served by this holding.