Court Opinion

ID: 9551174
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 18:48:41.673508+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:23:13.405725
License: Public Domain

DONALDSON, Chief Justice
(concurring specially).
If, as the majority opinion seems to' indicate, the function of punitive damages is “to punish and to deter,” I would have difficulty concurring with the view that public policy does not preclude recovery against a liability insurance company for punitive damages awarded against the insured. However, this Court’s most recent decision, in discussing the purposes of punitive damages, states that “we feel that the courts in these civil cases should be motivated primarily by a purpose of deterrence [of the defendant and others from engaging in similar conduct in the future] and not by a purpose of punishment. In other words, the assessment of exemplary damages should be prompted by the court’s or jury’s desire to assure, to the extent possible via the imposition of a monetary penalty, that similar conduct does not occur in the future. Punishment, per se, should be left to the criminal law.” Jolley v. Puregro Co., 94 Idaho 702, 708-709, 496 P.2d 939, 945 (1972). In addition, our latest cases also recognize a collateral public policy reason for awarding punitive damages: to encourage plaintiffs to bring suit against defendants who have engaged in antisocial conduct. Id. at 708, 496 P.2d 945; Cox v. Stolworthy, 94 Idaho 683, 691, 496 P.2d 682 (1972).
While insurance coverage for punitive damages may tend to defeat the predominant public policy purpose of deterring similar antisocial conduct, it unequivocably promotes the collateral purpose of encouraging plaintiffs to bring suit aginst defendants who have engaged in such conduct and who are covered under liability insurance policies which fail to exclude punitive damages. Under these circumstances, I am unable to conclude that public policy precludes liability insurance coverage for punitive damages.
*510Once the public policy question is determined in favor of the insured, I feel that the remainder of the majority opinion follows from that determination, and I concur with the reasoning expressed therein.