Court Opinion

ID: 9796085
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 03:48:24.013215+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:48:57.653877
License: Public Domain

HURWITZ, Justice,
concurring in part and concurring in the result.
¶30 The term “economic loss” in A.R.S. §§ 13-603(C) and -804 should be given its eommonsense meaning when the case involves contracting without a license. Thus, the victim should receive the difference between what he paid the unlicensed contractor and the value of what he received in return. If the restitution statutes are read to require that the amount paid is invariably the measure of restitution, an untenable result would obtain — a homeowner who received flawless work from an unlicensed contractor would be refunded the full amount paid but would nonetheless also retain the work performed. It is impossible for me to view such a victim as having suffered any loss, economic or otherwise, and I therefore concur in ¶¶ 1-18 of the majority opinion.
¶31 I write briefly, however, to address the subject that divides the majority and the dissent — the effect to be given to State v. Wilkinson, 202 Ariz. 27, 39 P.3d 1131 (2002). The majority correctly notes that Wilkinson is factually distinguishable. The issue in that case was whether the victim could recover restitution above the amount paid to the unlicensed contractor; the issue here is whether the amount paid is the appropriate amount of restitution when the homeowner has received value in return. Thus, the narrow holding in Wilkinson does not control the case before us.
¶ 32 But it is not just the narrow holdings of our prior cases that are entitled to respect under the doctrine of stare decisis. Rather, deference should also properly extend to the Court’s core rationale, the reasoning essential to the result in the prior case. See Seminole Tribe of Florida v. Florida, 517 U.S. 44, 66-67, 116 S.Ct. 1114, 134 L.Ed.2d 252 (1996); Miller v. Gammie, 335 F.3d 889, 900 (9th Cir.2003) (en banc).
¶ 33 As the Chief Justice notes in her dissent, the essential premise of Wilkinson was that the crime of contracting without a license was complete when the victims paid the unlicensed contractor. See Wilkinson, 202 Ariz. at 29 ¶¶ 9, 39 P.3d at 1133. Wilkinson therefore held that the quality of any work performed under the contract was irrelevant to the issue of criminal restitution. Id. ¶ 10, 39 P.3d 1131. Rather, because the crime was complete before any work was done, Wilkinson reasoned that the appropriate measure of “economic loss” suffered by a victim of unlicensed contracting is the amount paid to the contractor. Id. at 29-30 ¶¶ 8-14, 39 P.3d at 1133-34. Applying this rationale, the victims in this case would receive restitution of their total payments to Matykiewicz, regardless of the value of any completed work.
¶ 34 This, however, does not end the inquiry. Although stare decisis has powerful force, “[i]t is a doctrine of persuasion ... and not an ironclad rule.” Lowing v. Allstate Ins. Co., 176 Ariz. 101, 107, 859 P.2d 724, 730 (1993). Even in eases involving statutory construction, “we are not prisoners of the past,” particularly when the language of the statute at issue “does not compel the interpretation reached in previous cases.” Id.
¶ 35 Applying the rationale of Wilkinson to the case before us would lead to a conclusion that a victim has “economic loss” under the restitution statutes even if he has none in reality. Whatever its stare decisis effect, I cannot accept Wilkinson’s rationale when it would produce a result at odds with the language of the restitution statutes.
¶36 The policy behind the doctrine of stare decisis is that the public should be able to rely on prior judicial opinions in conducting affairs. Lowing, 176 Ariz. at 107, 859 P.2d at 730. That policy is not implicated in this ease. No victim of an unlicensed contractor could have relied on Wilkinson. As then-Judge Ryan once aptly noted, those with knowledge that a contractor with whom they deal is unlicensed are not victims at all, but rather accomplices to the offense not entitled to restitution. State v. Wilkinson, 198 Ariz. 376, 383 ¶ 36, 10 P.3d 634, 641 (App.2000) (Ryan, J., dissenting). And it goes without saying that an unlicensed contractor could not have relied to his detriment on Wilkinson, as that ease would impose *474broader liability on him than the Court’s decision today. See Benjamin N. Cardozo, The Nature of the Judicial Process 151 (1921) (“There should be greater readiness to abandon an untenable position when the rule to be discarded may not reasonably be supposed to have determined the conduct of the litigants.”).
¶37 In short, although I recognize that Wilkinson’s rationale would produce a different result if applied to this case, I find its reasoning contrary to the clear directive of the statute that a victim must suffer an actual loss before receiving restitution. In the case of unlicensed contracting, loss is measured by the difference in value between what the victim paid and what he received. I therefore concur in the judgment of the Court.