Court Opinion

ID: 9627905
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 08:58:31.468573+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:06:52.270790
License: Public Domain

OPALA, Justice,
with whom HODGES, Justice, joins, concurring in result.
The question to be answered in this original proceeding for a prerogative writ is whether the trial judge’s order bifurcating into two separate phases of jury trial the petitioners’ [the insured] claim against the insurer for mala fide refusal to pay a single loss under the uninsured/underin-sured motorist coverage of the policy [UM/UIM] should be condemned as an application of unauthorized judicial force. The court holds that the “[respondent trial judge had no authority under 12 O.S.Supp. 1984 § 2018(D),1 or any other provision, to require petitioners to submit to a separate trial as to the comparative fault of the City of Norman.”2 I concur in today’s disposition only insofar as it pronounces that, in a suit solely against the insurer for its bad-faith failure to settle a single UM/UIM loss, the insured’s cause of action is not amenable to a dichotomous division by which the issue whether the insured is “legally entitled to recover” against the alleged UM/UIM motorist could be severed from the rest of the claim for jury determination in the initial phase of a bifurcated trial.
I
THE ANATOMY OF THE PETITIONERS’ SINGLE CLAIM AGAINST THE INSURER
The gravamen of a claim against the insurer for withholding payment of a loss mala fide is unreasonable, bad-faith conduct. The insurer’s decision to seek resort to a judicial forum is not per se bad faith or unfair dealing regardless of the outcome of the suit.3 Conversely, a jury determination *161that the alleged UM/UIM tortfeasor was not at fault is not per se indicative of the insurer’s good faith in handling the insured’s demand for payment of the loss. Neither condemnation nor exoneration of the insurer’s conduct may alone be dictated by the ultimate forensic resolution of the legal dispute over the loss. The insurer’s good faith vel non is to be assessed by the trier from the totality of all the facts known and knowable about the loss at the time the insurer’s contractual performance was due. The trial bifurcation sought in this case would make the UM/UIM tort-feasor’s fault dispositive of the insured’s cause of action and thus divert the jury’s attention from the essence of the insured’s claim — the absence of the insurer’s good faith in its handling of the contested casualty loss in light of all the facts which were known or should have been known at the time the insurer’s performance could reasonably have been expected. The UM/UIM tortfeasor’s liability clearly presents here an issue inextricably intertwined with the remainder of the insured’s single and indivisible claim.4 In short, the tort liability of the City of Norman to the insured cannot be severed for separate submission in the first stage of a bifurcated trial without giving that issue undue prominence and thus distorting the gravamen of the petitioners’ claim for the insurer’s bad-faith refusal to settle the UIM loss in controversy.
II
THE STATUS OF THE CITY OF NORMAN AS AN UNDERINSURED MOTORIST
By joining in today’s condemnation of the trial judge’s bifurcation regime I do not wish to be understood as retreating from my view in Karlson v. City of Oklahoma City.5 There I counseled in dissent that UIM coverage does not include an insurer’s obligation for a municipality-inflicted tort with bodily damages in excess of the liability limit prescribed for the loss by The Governmental Tort Claims Act, 51 O.S. Supp.1984 §§ 151 et seq. I continue to favor my Karlson position with undiminished fervor.

.The terms of 12 O.S.Supp.1984 § 2018(D) provide:
"D. SEPARATE TRIALS. The court, in furtherance of convenience or to avoid prejudice, or when separate trials will be conducive to expedition and economy, may order a separate trial of any claim, cross-claim, counterclaim, or third-party claim, or of any separate issue or of any number of claims, cross-claims, counterclaims, third-party claims, or issues, always preserving inviolate the right of trial by jury.”

. The City of Norman, the alleged underinsured motorist, had settled with the insured for the limit of its statutory liability and was not a party to the litigation below.

. Manis v. Hartford Fire Ins. Co., Okl., 681 P.2d 760, 761 [1984]; McCorkle v. Great Atlantic Ins. Co., Okl., 637 P.2d 583, 587 [1981] and Christian v. American Home Assur. Co., Okl., 577 P.2d 899, 904 [1978].

. Mann v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., Okl., 669 P.2d 768, 773 [1983] (Opala, J., dissenting) and Lewis v. Farmers Ins. Co., Inc., Okl., 681 P.2d 67, 70 [1984] (Opala, J., dissenting).

. Okl., 711 P.2d 72, 75 [1985] (Opala, J., dissenting).