Country Ins. Co. v. Agricultural Development, Inc., 15296
| Decision Date | 30 November 1984 |
| Docket Number | No. 15296,15296 |
| Citation | 107 Idaho 961,695 P.2d 346 |
| Parties | COUNTRY INSURANCE COMPANY, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT, INC., an Idaho corporation, Defendant-Respondent. |
| Court | Idaho Supreme Court |
Michael G. Brady of Brady, McDaniels & Mathews, Boise, for plaintiff-appellant.
John J. Healzer of Hart & Healzer, Jerome, for defendant-respondent.
Country Insurance Company, in its statement of issues presented raises the sole contention that the trial court committed prejudicial error in revising a special verdict after the jury instruction conference where the trial court did not thereafter give counsel an opportunity to read and consider said revision and register objections thereto. The giving of the revised special verdict is not itself assigned as error.
The main theme of the appeal is set forth in Country Insurance's brief as follows:
Archer and Taylor 1 can be distinguished from this case in a number of ways:
(1) In Archer and Taylor, I.R.C.P. 51 provided in part:
(Emphasis added.)
I.R.C.P. 51 was subsequently amended in 1975, wherein the prior provision: "The failure to object to any instruction given by the Court shall not preclude any party to the action from assigning as error on appeal any erroneous instruction given or any omission by the court to give the proper instruction," was stricken and a mandatory requirement was added that counsel must object to the instructions that will be given by the Court and the failure to make an objection on the record precludes raising the issue on appeal.
In Briscoe v. Nishitani, 105 Idaho 175, 667 P.2d 278 (Ct.App.1983), the Idaho Court of Appeals stated:
Accordingly, in Archer and Taylor, the prejudicial effect of the failure to submit instructions to the parties for review and objections prior to instructing the jury, was cured by the language in the then Rule 51 which provided that the "failure to object to any instruction given by the court shall not preclude any party to the action from assigning as error on appeal any erroneous instruction given."
Therefore, prior to 1975, the failure to provide instructions to counsel, and the corresponding failure of counsel to object to the instructions to be given, did not prejudice counsel from raising the issue of erroneous or improper instructions on appeal.
However, subsequent to 1975, the failure to object to instructions given by the trial court, prior to instructing the jury, precludes raising the issue on appeal. The trial court altered and revised the original Special Verdict without the knowledge, participation or consent of counsel, and gave the altered Special Verdict to the Jury without giving counsel an opportunity to review or object to the altered Special Verdict. Technically, no objection having been made on the record thereto, Country Insurance is now precluded on appeal from raising any issue regarding the altered Special Verdict, to its extreme prejudice.
As pointed out above, Country Insurance, believing that it was precluded, has not assigned as an issue on appeal that there was prejudicial error other than in not displaying the revised version to counsel in order that objection could be made. Unfortunately, however, Country Insurance is in error on its underlying declaration that such preclusion has been the rule at all times subsequent to 1975. Correctly picking up on the change in the rule as it had existed at the time of Archer and Taylor by an amendment made effective January 1, 1975, 2 Country Insurance then fails to observe the further amendment made by order dated July 2, 1976, effective October 1, 1976. That 1976 amendment completely removed the sentence which is set out in footnote 2. A further amendment made to the rule on May 25, 1977, with an effective date of July 1, 1977, did not reinstate the language deleted by the 1976 amendment, but only continued the requirement of instruction conferences, and changed the existing last sentence of I.R.C.P. 51(a) to read that "All objections thereto, and any objections to the giving or the failure to give an instruction, and any court's ruling thereon, must be made a part of the record." Insofar as the argument here is concerned, the rule for almost eight years has not required the making of objections as a condition precedent to assigning error.
As noted in the above excerpt from its brief, Country Insurance in this Court relies heavily on a Court of Appeals case 3 in preference to a more close reading of Rule 51(a). The statement in that case, that "Failure to make an objection on the record precludes raising the issue on appeal," was thought by the Court of Appeals to be supported by Quincy, supra, and Stoddard, supra. In Quincy, there was no question about some general instructions which the trial judge gave in accordance with his custom of giving some general instructions in advance of opening statements. The judge offered an opportunity to object to the intended procedure, but no objection was made; the appellant in that case did not request time to review the instructions. The appellant having acquiesced at a time when he could have done otherwise, the holding of this Court was, not that he could not challenge such instructions on appeal, but that he could not challenge that procedure as error on appeal. In a similar situation, although a criminal case, we stated in State v. Watson, 99 Idaho 694, 701, 587 P.2d 835, 842 (1978): "Where a trial court inadvertently or even purposefully imposes on either party or both a variation in procedure, there yet remains an obligation to make a timely objection." 4 The Court of Appeals also cited Stoddard, supra, as support for its statement in Briscoe. In stating that the appellants in Stoddard were precluded from raising on appeal any issue of alleged error in the instructions, this Court, by footnotes 1 and 4 and in the text itself, made it clear that the rule as then applicable required the making of objections in the trial court in order to preserve the question for appellate rule. Accordingly, the statement in Briscoe was erroneous, and will henceforth be disregarded.
For reasons which hereinafter appear, we believe that it is in the interests of judicial administration to set forth the history of this litigation. The action was commenced by Country Insurance seeking a declaratory judgment against its policyholder, Agricultural Development, Inc., that it owed to the latter neither an obligation to defend an action then pending against Agricultural Development brought by Robert Nichols et ux nor to indemnify Agricultural Development for any judgment which might be rendered against it in the Nichols action. The Nichols action was filed in May of 1980, based on allegations that Agricultural Development's installations of irrigation systems were defectively installed, allegations of liability being founded on breaches of express and implied warranties, breach of contract, negligence, and fraud. Country Insurance undertook Agricultural Development's defense of the Nichols' lawsuit, with a reservation of rights, 5 and, as we were informed at oral argument, continues to provide that defense. Counsel retained by Country Insurance to represent Agricultural Development are not counsel who represent Country Insurance in this action, which was brought fourteen months after the commencement of the Nichols lawsuit. At oral argument the only explanation offered to the enigmatic situation of Country Insurance bringing the declaratory action against its policyholder was that the Nichols action "wasn't going anywhere"-- meaning to us that it was progressing so slowly that Country Insurance, notwithstanding its reservation of rights, made the decision to seek an adjudication that it owed no obligation to Agricultural Development.
Paragraph VII of Country Insurance's complaint alleged that on being notified of the Nichols action it advised Agricultural Development of the probability that there would be no coverage because of certain stated policy exclusions, and that it thereafter assumed the defense of the Nichols action, reserving its rights to deny coverage notwithstanding the assumption of such defense.
The prayer of Country Insurance's defense was:
1. That the Court determine and adjudicate the liability of Plaintiff to pay any judgment claimed by William K. Nichols and Ethel L. Nichols, husband and wife, and Robert O. Nichols and Karen L. Nichols, husband and wife, in any pending or further action arising out of the transactions or occurrences described in the Complaint attached hereto as Exhibit "C";
2. That the Court declare that Plaintiff is under no obligation to expend money in defending any actions which have been brought or which may be brought against D...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Lubcke v. Boise City/Ada County Housing Authority, Worrell, 18691
...to object to a jury instruction does not preclude challenging that instruction on appeal. Country Ins. Co. v. Agricultural Dev., Inc., 107 Idaho 961, 963-64, 695 P.2d 346, 348-49 (1984). Second, even though the district court did not explicitly address the qualified immunity issue in respon......
-
Hale v. Walsh
... ... In light of Newport v. Fact Concerts, Inc., 453 U.S. 247, 101 S.Ct. 2748, 69 L.Ed.2d 616 ... Supreme Court released its opinion in Country Insurance Company v. Agricultural Development, ... ...
-
Suitts v. First Sec. Bank of Idaho, N.A.
...deleted from Rule 51(a). The trial bench and bar are reminded of our recent decision in Country Insurance Co. v. Agricultural Development, Inc., 107 Idaho 961, 695 P.2d 346 (1984), where the history of the rule was reviewed at length. And though the rule was amended yet another time by orde......
-
Hilden v. Ball
...error, I will recommend to the four judges comprising the majority the fairly recent case of Country Insurance Company v. Agricultural Development, Inc., 107 Idaho 961, 695 P.2d 346 (1985), where this Court painstakingly tracked through the plethora of amendments to Rule 51(a)(1) and discov......