A minor prejudgment-interest opinion that needed more editing.

In 1994 a State commission fined the Taylors for controlling pests without a pest-control license. They didn’t pay. In 2007 the State filed suit to convert the commission’s order into a judgment. The trial court did so but refused to award prejudgment interest. This opinion affirms.

The State cited A.R.S. §44-1201(A): prejudgment interest “on any loan, indebtedness, judgment or other obligation.” The State argued that the commission order was an indebtedness or other obligation. The opinion discusses in detail several different definitions of “indebtedness” and “obligation.” Nothing in the definitions really suggests that the commission’s order wasn’t one or the other, if not both.

But then the opinion suddenly veers in a different direction, revealing that that’s not the issue after all. The issue is statutory construction, all right, but not of the statute that it just spent a few pages construing.

Penalties don’t bear prejudgment interest at common law. Some statutes providing for administrative penalties specifically allow it. The statute that the Taylors were penalized under doesn’t. And so, under classic principles of construction that the opinion doesn’t quite mention, the legislature didn’t intend it to.

The court’s approach to this is a bit meandering and backhanded but ends up in the same place. The opinion would be less ungainly if the the second part of the analysis were first and the first second (or omitted altogether; the court apparently thinks it logically necessary but it isn’t).

You think blogging cases is fun? Here’s the first sentence of this one: “We address in this opinion, among other issues, what the term “interruption of business, whether total or partial” means in this contract of insurance.” And the bottom of the screen says that the slip opinion is 47 pages long. Sigh.

Aztar owned the Tropicana in Atlantic City. It built an expansion next door; during construction, part of the new building collapsed. The rest of the resort was not damaged but the accident delayed the completion of the expansion and caused the state to close temporarily a road and other access-ways, both resulting in a loss of business. Aztar made a claim under its business-interruption coverage.

Fortunately, that’s almost all that’s interesting about this opinion. As you know from reading our FAQ (you have, right?) we only cover the interesting stuff. If business interruption is your thing, or if you’re a masochist, you can follow the court as it analyzes each policy word with a microscope, tells us how barrels are made, fantasizes about cows and ice cream, and concludes that the trial court was partially right for the wrong reason and partial wrong for the right reason. Or something.

Yes, this thing is, whether right or wrong, a mess.

The only interesting question is: what does this suit by a Delaware corporation against national and international insurers arising out of a New Jersey accident have to do with Arizona? The opinion doesn’t explain that to us. It does wonder why Arizona law applies; turns out that the parties never explained that to anyone.

This opinion discusses the doctrine of aiding and abetting in tort law.

It used to be said – and is still technically true – that there was no such thing as a civil conspiracy. That hindered the sue-everybody-in-sight types and so a tool even better than conspiracy was slipped into their toolbox several years ago: aiding and abetting. That has now become yet another phrase that tort lawyers love to throw around without worrying overmuch about what it means. Even its sponsors, the ivory-tower types at the ALI, may not have too firm a grasp.

Federico said he was hurt in an industrial accident. Maric, the doctor hired by the worker’s compensation carrier to perform an IME, didn’t agree. The carrier turned down the claim and Federico sued everyone in sight. He claimed that Maric aided and abetted the carrier’s wrongful denial. Maric moved for summary judgment; the trial court granted it; this opinion affirms.

After, that is, the usual long, repetitive, useless, boilerplate standard-of-review paragraph. Sometimes we actually get the feeling that the courts are not hanging on our every word.

Aiding and abetting requires substantial assistance to another’s act while knowing that the act is a tort. A leading case, Wells Fargo, 201 Ariz. 474, held that the bank knew enough about Fife Symington’s malfeasance; “actual and complete knowledge of the tort is not uniformly necessary” it said, in one of those delightfully vague, multi-adjectived phrases that allows lots of lucrative litigation.

But the court here ruled that Maric didn’t know enough. Federico painted him as a doctor who thinks almost everyone a malingerer. But those facts relate “only to Maric’s own actions and the propriety thereof” rather than to the carrier’s actions or Maric’s knowledge of them.

The evidence also did not support the idea that Maric substantially assisted the tort because the carrier didn’t need the IME in order to deny the claim.

On a different day, a different panel might have gone in a different direction and said that there was just enough evidence to get past summary judgment. But Federico seems to have been making an unfortunately routine ad hominem argument: Maric is a bad person (a biased doctor) and so he should be liable for something. One of the problems with aiding and abetting is that it gives legal cover for that sort of essentially non-legal argument. Its a tort animal that unless firmly handled could get out of control and eat up most of the zoo. The court perhaps had that in mind.