Court Opinion

ID: 9786737
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 00:02:00.562407+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:36:48.124340
License: Public Domain

MARTONE, Justice,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
¶ 106 I agree with the court that the absence of a duty to disclose is not fatal to the assertion of intentional tort claims. This is the issue decided by the court of appeals upon which review was sought. I would thus remand the case to the court of appeals for consideration of those issues presented to but not decided by it. The court instead proceeds to examine the sufficiency of the evidence in this case as to each of five separate counts. In the process it sweeps broadly, drawing on decisions from scores of other courts, to set forth, in dicta, rules for Arizona on issues not briefed by the parties. See, e.g., ante, at ¶ 58 *500n. 16. To illustrate, the court concludes that the tort of aiding and abetting fraud, unlike fraud itself, requires proof only by a preponderance of the evidence. I would like to have seen this issue briefed and argued. I should think that if fraud requires proof by clear and convincing evidence, aiding and abetting fraud would require the same.
¶ 107 Rule 23(i)(3), Ariz. R. Civ.App. P., provides that if issues were raised in, but not decided by, the court of appeals, we may consider them or remand to the court of appeals to decide them in the first instance. Given the fact intensive nature of the inquiry and the wide range of views expressed nationally on the torts alleged, it is best to have such issues decided in the court in which they were raised and briefed. I thus concur in the judgment but dissent from the court’s opinion.