Court Opinion

ID: 9508372
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-06 21:31:13.157281+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:07:31.816696
License: Public Domain

MR. JUSTICE HUNT,
dissenting:
I agree with the dissent of Justice Sheehy. Judge Bennett should be affirmed and the citizen’s right to know should be upheld.
The majority finds many devils lurking in the future that will take advantage of our foolishness if our balancing act comes down on the side of the insurance buyer and our right to know. For example the majority is concerned that the state might be sued if the commissioner releases injurious information about an insurance company. There is another side to that coin. As long as we are going to speculate, then in my view, to allow a company flying distress signals observable only to the commissioner but hidden from potential customers presents far more interesting possibilities for future litigation than the release of information furnished by the industry.
As Justice Sheehy says in his dissent, “It approaches inanity to hold that Montana insureds shall not be allowed to know which troubled companies are doing business in Montana or that they are troubled companies.”
A company in trouble or showing signs of trouble would certainly want privacy, but the realistic expectation is something else. In balancing the right to privacy of a relatively sophisticated insurance company doing business in Montana with the rights of generally less informed consumer-citizens who seek to purchase insurance, I would hold that the expectation of the citizen to know about the company clearly outweighs the need of a state agency to warehouse information in secrecy and deny citizens the right
The District Court should be affirmed.