Court Opinion

ID: 9569176
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:11:12.573391+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:50:09.088900
License: Public Domain

HODGES, J.,
with whom OP ALA and WILSON, JJ., join, dissenting.
¶ 1 I dissent from this Court’s opinion elevating Guardian Life Insurance Company of American (Guardian) to a position above other creditors. Before its amendment in 1988, section 1928(B) of title 36 of the Oklahoma Statutes allowed reinsurers a right to setoff. In 1988, the Oklahoma Legislature amended section 1928(B) to disallow a setoff to reinsurers who enter into contracts intended to mask from the Insurance Commissioner a precarious financial situation of an insurance company. This Court holds that the 1988 amendment should not be applied in the present ease. It reasons that to do so would be a retroactive active application which would deprive Guardian of its contractual rights. Nonetheless, the Court relies on a 1997 amendment to support its position.
¶2 A statute is not applied retroactively merely because its application addresses antecedent facts. Cox v. Hart, 260 U.S. 427, 435, 43 S.Ct. 154, 157, 67 L.Ed. 332 (1922); McAndrews v. Fleet Bank of Mass., 989 F.2d 13, 16 (1st Cir.1993). The United States Supreme Court set out the test for determining whether a statute’s application is retrospective as follows:
A statute does not operate “retrospectively” merely because it is applied in a case arising from conduct antedating the statute’s enactment, or upsets expectations based in prior law. Rather, the court must ask whether the new provision attaches new legal consequences to events completed before its enactment.
Landgraf v. USI Film Products, 511 U.S. 244, 269, 114 S.Ct. 1483, 1499, 128 L.Ed.2d 229 (1994). “Whether a statute’s application in a particular situation is prospective or retroactive depends upon whether the conduct that allegedly triggers the statute’s application occurs before or after the law’s effective date.” McAndrews, 989 F.2d at 16.
*1240¶ 3 The 1988 amendment’s application to this case is prospective. Its application does not attach new legal consequences to payments setoff before the insolvency. It only affects claims and credits that became due after its enactment, and it is not being applied to transactions which were completed before its effective date. The application of the 1988 amendment was not triggered by the execution of the contract. Only events after the effective date of the amendments triggered section 1928(B)’s application: the liquidation order, the appointment of the receiver, and Guardian’s attempt to setoff liabilities. All of these events occurred after the amendment’s effective date. When a law is applied only to payments after the date of its enactment, the application is prospective. In re Foxcroft, 198 B.R. 99, 105 (Bankr.E.D.Pa.1996); In re Upton Printing 197 B.R. 616, 620 (Bankr.E.D.La.1996).
¶4 Priorities in insolvency proceedings are generally determined by the law in effect at the time the proceedings are filed. See Oklahoma Life & Health’Ins. Guar. Ass’n v. Hilti Retirement Savings Plan, 1997 OK 25, 939 P.2d 1110. In Hilti, the parties entered into guaranteed investment contract's (GICs) in 1987 and 1988. Thereafter, the Oklahoma Legislature amended the Oklahoma Life and Health Insurance Guaranty Act, Okla. Stat. tit. 36, §§ 2021-43 (Supp.1987 & 1991), to exclude GICs from its coverage. Thereafter the company holding the contracts became insolvent. Determining that the operative event was the insolvency, this Court applied the amended version of the Act to the GICs because it was in effect at the time the insolvency was filed. Likewise, in the present case, the operative event is the filing of the liquidation proceedings. Under Hilti, the law in effect at the time the liquidation proceeding was filed is the controlling authority.
¶ 5 Application of the 1988 amendment does not improperly impair Guardian’s contract rights. “[CJontractual terms are not sacrosanct when an insurance company is insolvent.” Grode v. Mut. Fire. Marine and Inland Ins. Co., 132 Pa.Cmwlth. 196, 572 A.2d 798, 804 (1990) modified Foster v. Mut. Fire, Marine and Inland Ins. Co., 531 Pa. 598, 614 A.2d 1086 (1992) (upholding analysis of Contract Clause); John E. Tiller, Jr. & Denise Fagerberg, Life, Health & Annuity Reinsurance 266 (1990); Stephen W. Schwab et al. Onset of An Offset Revolution: The Application of Set-Offs in Insurance Insolvencies, 95 Dick. L.R. 449, 466 (1991). Contract provisions cannot override a statutory prohibition against setoff, John E. Tiller, Jr. & Denise Fagerberg, Life, Health & Annuity Reinsurance 266 (1990); see Magnusson v. American Allied Ins. Co., 290 Minn. 465, 189 N.W.2d 28 (1971), and an agreement governing the right to setoff is not effective after liquidation proceedings are filed. Stephen W. Schwab et al. Onset of An Offset Revolution: The Application of Set-Offs in Insurance Insolvencies, 95 Dick. L.R. 449, 466 (1991). Congress has the power to change priorities in bankruptcy proceedings and apply the change to pending cases. Coin Machine Acceptance Corp. v. O’Donnell, 192 F.2d 773, 777-78 (4th Cir.1951); In re Advisory Opinion to the Governor, 593 A.2d 943 (R.I.1991). States have no less power to change priorities in insurance liquidation proceedings and apply those changes in liquidation proceedings filed after the change’s effective date. See Aetna Life Ins. Co. v. Washington Life and Disability Ins. Guar. Ass’n, 83 Wash.2d 523, 520 P.2d 162 (1974).
¶ 6 A law impairing a contract is not necessarily unconstitutional. General Motors Corp. v. Romein, 503 U.S. 181, 186, 112 S.Ct. 1105, 1109, 117 L.Ed.2d 328 (1992); Keystone Bituminous Coal, 480 U.S. at 503-04, 107 S.Ct. at 1251-52; Taylor v. State and Education Emp. Group Ins. Program, 1995 OK 51, ¶ 14, 897 P.2d 275, 279. In analyzing whether a statute violates the Contract Clause, the inquiry begins with a three part test: “whether there is a contractual relationship, whether a change in law impairs that contractual relationship, and whether the impairment is substantial.” General Motors Corp., 503 U.S. at 186,112 S.Ct. at 1109; Taylor, 1995 OK 51 at ¶ 14, 897 P.2d at 279. I agree that Guardian and ASL had a contractual relationship. However, the overriding event that frustrated the contract was ASL’s insolvency not the amendment to section 1988. Guardian could not by contract override the state’s right to determine priorities and then argue that the state’s exercise *1241of its authority impaired its contract, especially in light of section 1925 of title 36 which states that the rights of the creditors are determined at the time the liquidation order is filed.
¶ 7 The Court without analysis or authority states that in 1997 the Legislature clarified the 1988 amendment — the amendment that the Court says does not apply to this case. This Court has long held: “The legislature has no power to direct the judiciary in the interpretation of existing statutes. The legislative intent that controls in the construction of a statute has reference to the legislature which enacted the act,” not a subsequent legislature. Stephens Produce Co. v. Stephens, 1958 OK 277, 332 P.2d 674, 677. See City of Bristow v. Groom, 1944 OK -, 194 Okla. 384, 151 P.2d 936, 942; Kuykendall v. Dept. of Public Safety, 1975 OK 175, ¶ 9, 544 P.2d 516, 518. Subsequent amendments are not indications of the intention of the adopting legislature in enacting earlier statutes. Kuykendall, 1975 OK 175, at ¶ 9, 544 P.2d at 518. Only when a statute is subject to serious doubt and there has been no judicial interpretation is subsequent amendment used to clarify a prior statute. Quail Creek Golf and Country Club v. Oklahoma Tax Comm’n, 1996 OK 35, ¶ 10, 913 P.2d 302, 303. Where a statute is not subject to serious doubt as in this case, an amendment will be presumed to alter the law. Special Indemnity Fund v. Archer, 1993 OK 14, 847 P.2d 791, 795.
¶8 Because the application of the 1988 amendment of section 1928(B) to Guardian’s right to setoff was not retrospective and did not impermissibly impair Guardian’s contract rights and the 1997 amendment is not a statement of the 1988 legislative intent, I dissent from the Court’s opinion and would affirm the trial court.