Court Opinion

ID: 9539717
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:09:01.648407+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:59:16.051289
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
In its motion for rehearing, appellant urges that our opinion has the erroneous effect of allowing a lay jury to determine whether an appeal is frivolous and to assess punitive damages if it so finds. Appellant’s contention in this regard evinces a misunderstanding of our holding. The issue in this case is not whether appellant misused its right as a losing litigant and invoked an appellate court’s jurisdiction for the sole purpose of pursuing an appeal on frivolous grounds. The issue is whether appellant satisfied its responsibilities as a losing litigant and, by basing its failure or refusal to pay no-fault benefits on its pending efforts to secure discretionary appellate review by the Supreme Court of the United States, acted in “good faith” toward its insured within the meaning of OCGA § 33-34-6. The evidence in the instant case authorized a finding that, notwithstanding the relative merits of any federal question that was or might have been raised in appellant’s application for the writ of certiorari, its status as a litigant in Enfmger was already at an end. The effect of appellant’s failure to raise any federal question in a timely fashion was to render our Supreme Court’s decision in Enfinger a jurisdictionally nonviable vehicle upon which to predicate any effort to secure an appellate review by the Supreme Court of the United States. Had there been no question but that a viable jurisdictional basis existed for appellant’s application for the writ of certiorari, no jury question as to appellant’s lack *92of good faith pending final disposition of that application would have existed. To hold, as appellant suggests, that the mere existence of an application for a writ of certiorari from the Supreme Court of the United States is the controlling factor, notwithstanding an underlying lack of any jurisdictional support therefor, is to sanction the unwarranted indiscriminate employment of such applications by any and all parties who are dissatisfied with a state appellate court’s otherwise “final” resolution of any and all issues. The appellate process does not extend to the Supreme Court of the United States in every case. The evidence in the instant case authorized a finding that, under the circumstances, the pendency of appellant’s application for the writ of certiorari was not a “good faith” basis upon which to refuse or fail to pay appellee the no-fault benefits that were due him. The jury was accordingly authorized to assess punitive damages against appellant, not for having pursued a frivolous appeal, but pursuant to OCGA § 33-34-6 (c).
Decided November 6, 1986
Rehearing denied December 2, 1986
Michael L. Wetzel, for appellant.
James E. Butler, Jr., Sandra S. Laszlo, for appellee.

Motion for rehearing denied.