Court Opinion

ID: 9695755
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 18:28:41.943424+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:16.099948
License: Public Domain

Boyle, J.
(concurring). Although I concur in Justice Archer’s decision to adopt, as a majority of jurisdictions have, the "judgment rule” of insurer liability where an insurer’s bad-faith failure to settle a claim results in a judgment against an insured in excess of the policy limits, I write separately in order to emphasize the narrowness of this ruling.
I read Justice Archer’s majority opinion as addressing only the question of the proper measure of damages recoverable once a claim of bad-faith failure to settle has been established. The opinion does not, as I understand it, pass upon the propriety of the trial court’s finding in this case of bad faith on defendant’s part, nor on the propriety *545of the Court of Appeals affirmance of that finding.1 Its failure to do so is the necessary result of our limited grant order in this case, which directed the parties to address only the question whether the trial court and Court of Appeals properly limited the nature and amount of damages available to Charles Keeley as counterplaintiff in this case. 430 Mich 857 (1988).
Thus, in my view the opinion should not be seen as establishing a new definition or standard of bad faith in such cases, nor, for that matter, as applying an existing definition or standard of bad faith. See, e.g., Commercial Union Ins Co v Liberty Mutual Ins Co, 426 Mich 127; 393 NW2d 161 (1986); City of Wakefield v Globe Indemnity Co, 246 Mich 645; 225 NW 643 (1929). The question whether bad faith was properly shown under these circumstances is simply not before this Court.2
1 write also to express my agreement with Jus*546tice Archer that today’s decision is not, as Justice Cavanagh states, necessarily "incompatible” with our decision in Stockdale v Jamison, 416 Mich 217; 330 NW2d 389 (1982). There are, as the majority aptly points out, a number of differences between "failure to defend” and "failure to settle” cases. This opinion should not be seen as affecting the continuing viability of the Stockdale rule with respect to failure to defend cases.

 I agree with Justice Archer that the trial court did make a finding of bad faith in this case. I also believe, despite Justice Levin’s reservations on the issue, that the Court of Appeals did consider, and reject, defendant’s argument on appeal that bad faith had not been established, since it not only upheld the award of attorney fees to Mrs. Keeley, but also remanded the case to the trial court for entry of judgment against defendant Frankenmuth "in an amount equal to Charles Keeley’s assets not exempt from legal process.” No such remand would have been necessary if the Court of Appeals had accepted the defendant’s argument that plaintiff had failed to show bad faith.
While it is true, as Justice Levin observes, that the Court of Appeals treatment of the defendant’s argument that bad faith was not shown is "cursory” at best, I would not, like Justice Levin, presume that the Court of Appeals therefore failed to fully consider the issue. Rather, we should engage in the presumption that, as a matter of procedure, the Court would not have answered the damages question at all if it had not first resolved for itself the question whether bad faith was properly shown to begin with. In this case, lack of bad faith was the defendant’s "lead” argument; I cannot assume that the Court of Appeals simply missed the issue and reached a question which otherwise it would not have had to resolve.

 This is not to say, as Justice Levin apparently believes, that I am of the opinion that "there may have been clear error in finding . . . bad faith or inadequate evidentiary support for such a finding.” Post, p 567. I am merely pointing out the obvious, i.e., that we reach only *546the issue of damages in this case and do not address the merits of plaintiff’s bad-faith claim, which the defendant challenged in the Court of Appeals — a challenge, again, that it undeniably lost — and with respect to which we did not grant leave to appeal.