Court Opinion

ID: 9558184
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 17:03:58.77169+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:08:27.400111
License: Public Domain

HENRIOD, Chief Justice
(concurring in part and dissenting in part).
Wesley and his boy brought the instant litigation, asking for a declaration that the policy: 1) required defendant to defend the action, and 2) that defendant was liable for past and future judgments obtained against Wesley or Dennis, urging that both were covered.
The lower court adjudged that defendant was a) obligated to defend the action and b) was liable for any resulting judgment up to the policy limit. This writer believes the trial court’s judgment with respect to the duty to defend is correct as reflected in the language of the policy itself, and that defendant had and has the onus of defending the suits brought against Wesley, except the action in Idaho, where the court obtained no jurisdiction over him. The following language in the policy, which usually is the “clincher” after the “pitch” to the effect that the insurance company would “defend any suit against the insured alleging such injury * * * and seeking damages on account thereof, even if such suit is groundless, false or fraudulent” seems significant and clear.
As to b) : I think that during the pend-ency of a suit for personal injuries where *338the- insurance company has denied liability for injury but it has agreed and it has been adjudged that at least it must defend its assured under the terms of the policy, the question of ultimate liability should cither be developed, in the case below or in a proceeding subsequent to the trial thereof. . Otherwise, in every, instance where the insurance carrier is obligated to defend its assured, this court could be called upon, during the pendency of the action, to interpret insurance policies, the answer to which very well might be found in an orderly proceeding at the trial level'. This may not be a tight conclusion or rtile, and it is not urged that there cannot be a case where the procedure pursued' here might not be entertained. But here is a case where both sides have written scholarly briefs, both of which point out provisions of. the policy that could’ be interpreted with good logic and reason by one or another of us to support either side.
Should we determine at this juncture, in this particular case, the question of the insurer’s liability or nonliability, based on but two affidavits, not subjected to cross-examination, it would seem that prematurely we immunize one side or the other against a plenary and fair hearing or trial, because of simple res judicata principles.
WADE, J., concurs in the views expressed in the opinion of HENRIOD, ti- j"