Campbell v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co.

RUSSON, Associate Chief Justice,

concurring in part and dissenting in part:

¶ 134 Inez Campbell was never involved in the lawsuit underlying the action now before us, nor could she have been. She was not driving the car that caused the accident, she was never named as a defendant, and she never had any exposure to or became legally obligated to pay damages to any of the claimants. State Farm owed no duty to her under the insurance policy. Only her husband Curtis Campbell was potentially liable, was sued, and was subject to the judgment rendered in that case. State Farm’s duty extended only to him.

¶ 135 Ignoring these crucial facts, the trial court in the second stage of the bifurcated trial in this case erroneously instructed the jury three times that State Farm had already been found liable to both Mr. and Mrs. Campbell for breaching its fiduciary duty and its duty of good faith and fair dealing. In fact, the jury in the prior stage of the trial never rendered a verdict extending liability for bad faith to Inez Campbell. As a result, the trial court’s multiple jury instructions to the contrary misled the jury and, in the process, vitiated State Farm’s right to a fair trial. This error was plain, and it tainted every aspect of the verdict now under review, 1 including Mrs. Campbell’s independent claims for fraud and intentional infliction of emotional distress. The majority’s attempt to nevertheless affirm on so-called “independent” grounds glosses over the fatal flaws explicit in the lower court’s judgment and runs contrary to this court’s own well-established case law.

I. INEZ CAMPBELL’S BAD FAITH CLAIM

¶ 136 Although the majority declines to address the issue, it is clear under Utah law that Inez Campbell never had standing to sue State Farm for bad faith. While this court has long recognized tort claims for an insurance company’s breach of its implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, see Ammerman v. Farmers Ins. Exch., 19 Utah 2d 261, 266 , 430 P.2d 576, 577-78 (1967), we have always required that plaintiffs wishing to bring such claims first demonstrate a contractual nexus through which their suits arise. As we unanimously held only two years ago in Sperry v. Sperry, “Utah law *1173 clearly limits the duty of good faith to first parties to insurance contracts. Consequently, only a first party can sue for breach of that duty.” 1999 UT 101, ¶ 7 , 990 P.2d 381 . This conclusion is as natural as it is logical, for “both first- and third-party claims arise only because of the contractual relationship of the parties.” Savage v. Educators Ins. Co., 908 P.2d 862, 866 (Utah 1995).

¶ 137 In this case, Curtis Campbell was a party to the insurance contract with State Farm, and his wife Inez Campbell was not. The contract itself states:

STATE FARM MUTUAL AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE COMPANY ... Agrees with the insured, named in the declarations made a part hereof, in consideration of the payment of the premium and in reliance upon the statements in the declarations and subject to all the terms of this policy....

(Emphasis added.) The only person listed as a “named insured” on the declarations to which the contract refers is Curtis Campbell. In fact, Mr. Campbell is the only person listed on those declarations at all. Consequently, Mr. Campbell was the only one with whom State Farm “[a]gree[d] ... in consideration of the payment of the premium” to provide insurance for those designated as covered by the policy. Mrs. Campbell was simply a beneficiary of the contract, an additional insured.

¶ 138 Importantly, we have explicitly held that the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing does not extend to parties who are merely beneficiaries of an insurance policy. In Savage v. Educators Insurance Co., 908 P.2d 862 (Utah 1995), a school bus driver who was insured under an Educators policy purchased by her employer sued the insurance company for allegedly acting in bad faith by resisting to compensate her for medical expenses she had incurred. Recognizing that “the duty of good faith and fair dealing is a contractual covenant, one that arises solely as an incident to contractual obligations owed by an insurer to its insured,” Chief Justice Zimmerman’s 4-1 opinion, from which Justice Durham dissented, flatly rejected the plaintiffs contention that she had standing to sue. Id. at 866 . We held:

Because Savage has no contractual relationship with Educators, she has no cause of action against it for breach of the covenant of good faith and fair dealing. This conclusion is consistent with the commentators and the great majority of courts in other jurisdictions....

Id. 2 Nothing is different here. Just as the Jordan School District contracted with Educators for a policy that insured Pat Savage, *1174 in this case Mr. Campbell purchased his insurance policy from State Farm, a policy that also insured Mrs. Campbell. Consequently, the contract states by its own terms that it is an agreement between State Farm and Curtis Campbell — and no one else. Had Mrs. Campbell wished to be named as a party to the contract rather than merely as a beneficiary of it, she could have negotiated for that right. Because she did not do so, however, she had no right under Utah law to sue for bad faith. See Savage, 908 P.2d at 866 .

¶ 139 To this degree, Justice Durham’s assertion that any conclusion reached concerning whether Inez Campbell had standing to sue for bad faith is an “advisory” one constitutes nothing less than hyperbolic pretense. The claim for bad faith was the crux of the case against State Farm, and it was for this reason that the lower court bifurcated the trial in the first place. Moreover, our decision in Savage addressed precisely the issue in question here. Accordingly, any notion that the question of whether Mrs. Campbell had standing to sue for bad faith is “an open [one] in Utah” can be characterized only as a conclusion that recklessly throws all judicial restraint, particularly in the name of stare decisis, to the wind for the sake of achieving a desired result: a binding judgment against State Farm for its, admittedly, condemnable behavior.

¶ 140 Importantly, however, the law has long recognized that not all actions causing injury enjoy recourse in the courts. E.g., Craftsman Builder’s Supply, Inc. v. Butler Mfg. Co., 1999 UT 18, ¶ 140 , 974 P.2d 1194 (Zimmerman, J., concurring) (“The law simply does not recognize that every harm suffered should be compensated.”); Demman v. Star Broadcasting Co., 28 Utah 2d 50, 53 , 497 P.2d 1378, 1380 (1972) (finding that lawsuits cannot be allowed “in every instance”); see also Black’s Law Dictionary 398 (7th ed. 1999) (“ ‘There are cases in which the law will suffer a man knowingly and wilfully to inflict harm upon another, and will not hold him accountable for it.’ ” (quoting John Salmond, Jurisprudence 372-73 (Glanville L. Williams ed., 10th ed.1947))). This rule of damnum absque injuria applies regardless of how offensive or inappropriate society might find an actor’s conduct to be, and this court has itself repeatedly barred recovery for conduct that could very well be considered condemnable but for which there is no cause of action. See, e.g., Sears v. Ogden City, 572 P.2d 1359, 1362 (Utah 1977) (holding that there is no recovery for government action making access to one’s property difficult and inconvenient); Demman, 28 Utah 2d at 53 , 497 P.2d at 1380 (denying recovery for slander to a losing political candidate after a radio station broadcasted “obnoxious” remarks by a caller who asserted that the candidate was unqualified and a felon); N.M. Long & Co. v. Cannorir-Papanikolas Constr. Co., 9 Utah 2d 307, 310 , 343 P.2d 1100, 1102 (1959) (affirming judgment for no recovery from defendants who had made unusable plaintiffs fish pond business by draining water from their property); Twenty-Second Corp. of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints v. Oregon Short Une R.R. Co., 36 Utah 238, 255-56 , 103 P. 243, 249-50 (1909) (disallowing recovery for disruption of worship services caused by operation of a railroad near a church on Sundays). Consequently, regardless of Justice Durham’s assertion to the contrary, it absolutely does matter what legal theory plaintiffs hang their damages on, because failure to sufficiently prove all elements of a given cause of action makes the difference between an injury for which the law provides recourse and one for which there is no legal remedy at all. As such, the majority opinion’s curious admission that the jury was not “at all affected in its decision and verdict by the legal labels applied to describe [State Farm’s] conduct” in this case both undermines the logic of the opinion itself and emphasizes the importance of whether Mrs. Campbell had standing to sue for bad faith. For if, as the majority recognizes, the jury disregarded the appropriate legal standard in an attempt to “punish” State Farm for conduct the jury found offensive, that is unrefut-ed evidence of error in law, passion, and prejudice on the jury’s part — necessitating a new trial on the court’s own motion. See, e.g., Bennion v. LeGrand Johnson Constr. Co., 701 P.2d 1078,1084 (Utah 1985); Paul v. Kirkendall, 1 Utah 2d 1, 3 , 261 P.2d 670, 671 (1953); Utah R. Civ. P. 59. Moreover, the majority’s recognition that the jury disre *1175 garded the applicable legal standards in this case actually helps explain the great extent to which the trial court’s erroneous instruction that State Farm had committed bad faith against Mrs. Campbell confused and inflamed the jury. See infra part III.A.

¶ 141 Indeed, the majority’s reluctance to recognize that Mrs. Campbell never had standing to sue for bad faith only highlights the problems created at the trial level when the lower court inappropriately allowed Mrs. Campbell standing. In fact, the trial court’s failure to recognize that Mrs. Campbell did not have standing to pursue a bad faith claim for State Farm’s failure to settle the lawsuit against Mr. Campbell eventually led to the court’s rendering a faulty verdict in the first stage of the case, and then erroneously instructing the jury in the second stage that State Farm had already been found liable to Mrs. Campbell for bad faith when no such verdict had ever been rendered.

II. THE TRIAL COURT’S FAULTY VERDICT AND ERRONEOUS INSTRUCTION

¶ 142 This case was bifurcated, resulting in two different jury trials with verdicts. The jury in the first stage of the bifurcated trial was asked by the special verdict form only whether there was a likelihood of a judgment being entered in favor of various claimants against Curtis Campbell, and whether State Farm had “act[ed] unreasonably when it chose not to settle [the various claims] against Curtis B. Campbell for Mr. Campbell’s policy limit.” (Emphasis added.) Never was the jury in this first stage of the bifurcated trial asked to answer any question that pertained to Inez Campbell, and the jury accordingly never entered any such verdict in her favor. 3

¶ 143 However, after reciting the jury’s special verdict that addressed only State Farm’s actions with respect to Curtis Campbell, the judgment entered in the first stage of the bifurcated trial stated, “Based on the above findings by the jury, ... plaintiffs are granted judgment of liability against defendant State Farm ... based on State Farm’s breach of its duty to act in good faith in defending Curtis Campbell.” (Emphasis added.) Therefore, with no further explanation, the court ordered that State Farm was hable to both Curtis and Inez Campbell solely on the basis of the jury’s findings that State Farm had breached its duty to Curtis Campbell. This giant leap of faith and logic assumed that liability can arise out of the ether for one plaintiff if a jury finds it for another, a result wholly at odds with Utah procedure and law. See, e.g., Brigham v. Moon Lake Elec. Ass’n, 24 Utah 2d 292, 298 , 470 P.2d 393, 397 (1970) (when special verdict submitted, jury finds facts and court applies law); Colovos v. Home Life Ins. Co. of New York, 83 Utah 401, 414 , 28 P.2d 607, 612 (1934) (court enters judgment on the verdict); Utah R. Civ. P. 47(q) (jury declares verdict). To be sure, this failure to conform to the verdict was plain error, rendering the judgment void on its face and requiring our reversal of Mrs. Campbell’s bad faith claim on appeal — especially given the unavoidable conclusion that Mrs. Campbell never had standing to sue for bad faith in the first place.

¶ 144 Moreover, the trial court’s faulty judgment eventually resulted in severely misleading the jury in the second stage of the bifurcated trial. Indeed, in the second stage of the case, the trial court erroneously instructed the jury three times that the previous jury had found State Farm liable to Inez Campbell for bad faith even though no such determination had ever been made. State Farm objected to this instruction, but the court gave the erroneous instruction nevertheless. For instance, jury instruction 25 stated:

You are instructed that a previous jury in this case has found ... that State Farm acted unreasonably in not settling [the] *1176 claims against Mr. Campbell before the Cache County verdicts. This means that State Farm breached its duties of good faith and fair dealing and its fiduciary duty to Campbells to settle the claims against Curtis Campbell -within the policy limits.

(Emphasis added.) Likewise, jury instruction 28 informed the jury that “State Farm breached its fiduciary duties and duties of good faith and fair dealing to the Campbells,” and thus, that the jury could award “compensatory damages ... caused by State Farm’s breaches of these duties.” (Emphasis added.) Even the special verdict questions put to the jury were prefaced with the statement that

[i]t has previously been determined that State Farm breached its duty of good faith and fair dealing towards the Campbells.

(Emphasis added.) As noted, however, this statement simply was not true. The jury in the first stage of the trial never found liability toward Inez Campbell. The trial court’s multiple instructions to the contrary in the second stage of the trial were misleading to the jury and constituted plain and prejudicial error, for the jury’s erroneous assumption that State Farm was liable to Inez Campbell for bad faith permeated every aspect of the verdict rendered in the second stage of the trial.

III. THE PREJUDICIAL EFFECTS OF THE TRIAL COURT’S ERROR

¶ 145 Because the trial court erroneously instructed the jury in the second stage of the bifurcated trial that State Farm had been found liable to Mrs. Campbell for bad faith, the judgment from the trial’s second stage must be vacated and remanded as to Inez Campbell’s claims for fraud and intentional infliction of emotional distress, and as to the punitive damages award rendered jointly to Mr. and Mrs. Campbell. Those instructions tainted the jury’s consideration of Mrs. Campbell’s claims for fraud and intentional infliction of emotional distress, thus preventing any chance that State Farm would receive a fair trial on those issues or on the issue of punitive damages. Moreover, the erroneous instructions fundamentally altered the jury’s consideration of punitive damages in contravention to our decision in Crookston v. Fire Insurance Exchange, 817 P.2d 789 (Utah 1991). Indeed, both independently and together, the trial court’s severe missteps in this regard constituted plain error necessitating reversal on appeal — especially given that such errors occurred, not because the trial court mistakenly overlooked a matter of procedure or law, but as a result of the court’s own affirmative actions in respect to the verdict in the first stage of the case and the jury instructions and special verdict form in the second. 4

A. Right to a Fair Trial

¶ 146 All parties to litigation — plaintiff and defendant alike — are entitled to a fair trial. In Utah, this right to a fair trial has long included the right to “a presentation of the case to the jury under instructions that clearly, concisely and accurately state the issues and the law applicable thereto so that the jury will understand its duties.” Hanks v. Christensen, 11 Utah 2d 8, 12 , 354 P.2d 564, 566 (1960); see also, e.g., Rowley v. Graven Bros. & Co., 26 Utah 2d 448, 451 , 491 P.2d 1209, 1211 (1971); Brunson v. Strong, 17 Utah 2d 364, 368 , 412 P.2d 451, 454 (1966); Williams v. Lloyd, 16 Utah 2d 427, 429 , 403 *1177 P.2d 166, 167 (1965); Wellman v. Noble, 12 Utah 2d 350, 352 , 366 P.2d 701, 702 (1961); Utah State Nat’l Bank v. Livingston, 74 Utah 456, 458-59 , 280 P. 327, 327-28 (1929). In this ease, however, the instructions given by the court to the jury were anything but “clear” or “accurate,” and State Farm consequently never received a fair trial.

¶ 147 In fact, the instructions’ multiple erroneous statements that State Farm had been found liable to Inez Campbell for bad faith possessed only the possibility to confuse the jury and the issues it was to decide. Perhaps most problematically, the court’s erroneous statements “took the jury’s mind from the real issue” of whether State Farm was liable under Mrs. Campbell’s claims for fraud and intentional infliction of emotional distress by “emphasizing] [a] situation[ ] ... not supported” by the facts or law — that State Farm was already liable to Inez Campbell for bad faith. Taylor v. Johnson, 15 Utah 2d 342, 349-50 , 393 P.2d 382, 387-88 (1964). We have previously held that such an effect violates a party’s right to a fair trial, and nothing militates to the contrary here. See id. Likewise, the court’s instructions created the misperception that Mrs. Campbell’s claims were inextricably bound up in, and caused by, State Farm’s actions toward Mr. Campbell. In so doing, the court impermissibly confused the jury by repeatedly referring to “the Campbells” in the aggregate, rather than by separating the two plaintiffs and their respective claims as required by law. Cf. Nielsen v. Pioneer Valley Hosp., 830 P.2d 270, 274 (Utah 1992) (holding that plaintiff had been denied her right to a fair trial when the court gave instructions confusing the two legal theories on which she was pursuing her claim); King v. Barron, 770 P.2d 975, 977 (Utah 1988) (finding severance appropriate where merging trial for plaintiffs legally unrelated claims “would invite error and confusion” by forcing jury to consider different evidence and theories in relation to separate defendants). Had the court specifically instructed the jury that Inez Campbell’s claims for fraud and intentional infliction of emotional distress were entirely separate from those lodged by Curtis Campbell — or had it severed Mrs. Campbell’s suit from Mr. Campbell’s upon making the correct and appropriate determination that she had no standing to sue for bad faith — then the prejudicial effects of this statement arguably would have been avoided. But the court did not take such an action, and as a consequence both the entire verdict as to Mrs. Campbell and the punitive award, which was rendered jointly as to Mr. and Mrs. Campbell, were irreparably tainted by the court’s denying State Farm its right to a fair trial.

¶ 148 Indeed, the lower court’s violation of State Farm’s right to a fair trial in this case is especially flagrant in view of the great care with which trial courts are required to select juries. The process of voir dire exists so that courts can ensure “a fair and impartial jury [is] chosen.” 47 Am.Jur.2d, Jury § 189, at 871 (1995). Likewise, partiality, prejudice, and bias all constitute reasons upon which a trial court may excuse a juror for cause, Utah R. Civ. P. 47(f)(6), and we have specifically held that trial “judges should err on the side of caution in ruling on for-cause challenges,” as courts’ discretion in this area is limited due to the “ease with which all issues of bias can be dispensed by the simple expedient of replacing a questionable juror with another whose neutrality is not open to question.” State v. Saunders, 1999 UT 59, ¶ 51 , 992 P.2d 951 . As a result, we have further held that where a jury considers in its deliberations evidence not introduced at trial, a new trial is required to ensure fairness and impartiality of the ultimate result. See State ex rel. Road Comm’n v. White, 22 Utah 2d 102, 103 , 449 P.2d 114, 115 (1969). 5 Similarly, courts uniformly re *1178 quire dismissal of potential jurors who have prior knowledge of facts material to the dispute, and require a new trial where such jurors were not dismissed. See, e.g., Lewis v. State ex rel. Baxley, 260 Ala. 368 , 70 So.2d 790, 791-92 (1954) (affirming trial court’s decision to dismiss six jurors from a disciplinary proceeding because their animals had been treated by the veterinarian under review); Barker v. Commonwealth, 230 Va. 370 , 337 S.E.2d 729, 733 (1985) (reversing a conviction for rape, sodomy, and malicious wounding because juror who knew of defendant’s prior conviction on the same charges, which had been overturned and was being readjudicated, was not excused). And in cases where media coverage is so “extensive” that it precludes a party from “receiving] a fair and impartial trial,” we have held that trial courts must take protective measures, such as allowing change of venue, to ensure a fair trial. See, e.g., State v. James, 767 P.2d 549, 554 (Utah 1989). In fact, even in the face of countervailing constitutional concerns, we have allowed trial courts to issue temporary restraining orders restricting during-trial publicity so that the parties hold a greater chance of receiving a fair trial. See KUTV, Inc. v. Wilkinson, 686 P.2d 456, 461 (Utah 1984). It is for this same reason that trial judges examine potential jurors at length about any outside information they may have received concerning the case at issue and whether they have any preconceived notions about the parties or the subject matter in dispute. Upon finding that such partiality exists, a judge will properly excuse that potential juror from service, just as courts repeatedly and appropriately instruct the eventually impaneled jurors not to discuss the case with anyone or to consider any media coverage of the suit or other outside evidence. See Model Utah Jury Instructions, Civil 1.8 (Michie 1993). In this case, however, the trial court nullified any prior efforts it had made to impanel a fair and impartial jury by itself giving the jury erroneous information, namely, that State Farm had already been found liable to Mrs. Campbell for bad faith. Had a potential juror admitted to such an erroneous belief upon reporting for duty, he or she certainly would have been excused. But here, it was the trial court’s own instruction that misled the jury and, thus, encroached on State Farm’s right to a fair trial.

¶ 149 Accordingly, the majority opinion’s bare assertion that Mrs. Campbell’s fraud and intentional infliction of emotional distress claims “provide[ ] an independent basis for sustaining all of Mrs. Campbell’s damages” cannot support an affirmance of the lower court’s judgment. Not only does Justice Durham fail to attempt to explain how those theories of liability account for the damages the jury actually awarded, but the judgments rendered to Mrs. Campbell on her claims for fraud and intentional infliction of emotional distress are void ab initio due to the court’s breach of State Farm’s right to a fair trial.

B. Punitive Damages

¶ 150 Apart from the problems created by the lower court’s denying State Farm its right to a fair trial, the court’s multiple erroneous instructions to the jury that liability had been found as to Inez Campbell for bad faith prejudiced State Farm further by skewing the fundamental considerations required for determining punitive damages.

¶ 151 The jury was asked in the second stage of the bifurcated trial to award damages to both Curtis Campbell and Inez Campbell, and in doing so awarded compensatory damages to Curtis Campbell in the amount of $1.4 million and to Inez Campbell in the amount of $1.2 million. The jury was also asked to award punitive damages, if any, which it did in the amount of $145 million but without designating which portion of the amount was awarded to Inez Campbell and which portion was awarded to Curtis Campbell.

¶ 152 In its determination of punitive damages, the jury had been specifically instructed by the trial court to consider, among other things, “the effect of defendant’s misconduct on the lives of the Campbells,” “the relationship between the parties,” and “the amount of compensatory damages awarded.” *1179 This jury instruction was given in compliance with our decision in Crookston v. Fire Insurance Exchange, 817 P.2d 789 (Utah 1991), which held that a jury awarding punitive damages must be charged with considering seven factors in order to determine the appropriate amount of the award. These factors include “(i) the relative wealth of the defendant; (ii) the nature of the alleged misconduct; (in) the facts and circumstances surrounding such conduct; (iv) the effect thereof on the lives of the plaintiff and others; (v) the probability of future recurrence of the misconduct; (vi) the relationship of the parties; and (vii) the amount of actual damages awarded.” Crookston, 817 P.2d at 808 (emphasis added). However, because the jury was operating under the false assumption that State Farm was liable to Inez Campbell for bad faith, it could not possibly have given proper consideration to each of these factors, and the majority consequently sets dangerous precedent by reinstating the jury’s original punitive award for $145 million rather than remanding to the trial court for further deliberations on punitive damages.

¶ 153 Indeed, the jury granted Mrs. Campbell $1.2 million in compensatory damages for her injury, and we can only assume that the jury followed the judge’s instructions and based its punitive award, at least partially, on the effect of State Farm’s alleged misconduct on Mrs. Campbell’s life. See, e.g., Nielsen v. Pioneer Valley Hosp., 830 P.2d 270, 275 (Utah 1992) (“[Jjurors are sworn to follow the instructions as given by the court_”). As instructed by the court, the jury understood a good portion of such misconduct to include State Farm’s breach of its duty of good faith and fair dealing', but as explained, State Farm did not owe Mrs. Campbell such a duty and no jury had ever found that State Farm had breached it to her. This is enough by itself to require a reassessment of the punitive award at the trial level, since the judgment rendered to punish State Farm is inexplicably tied to “misconduct” that State Farm did not — and could not — commit.

¶ 154 Moreover, the punitive award does not reflect an appropriate consideration of Crookston’s sixth factor, the relationship of the parties. The analysis undertaken by any jury properly employing our seven factors for punitive damages will be fundamentally altered when informed that, as a matter of law, one of the plaintiffs in the case has no standing to sue for one of the claims lodged. Especially here, where Mrs. Campbell’s claim for bad faith was her only assertion of a fiduciary relationship with State Farm, it is imperative that we remand the punitive damages award for further proceedings. To be sure, even if Inez Campbell’s remaining claims for fraud and intentional infliction of emotional distress survived the problems created by the unfair trial given to State Farm in this case, which they do not, they neither create nor demonstrate any relevant legal relationship between Mrs. Campbell and State Farm. The precise effect such a revelation would have had on the jury falls only within the realm of pure speculation, but given our own mandate that the jury consider, not a fictional, but the actual “relationship of the parties” in determining punitive damages, this too requires that we remand to the trial court for further proceedings.

¶ 155 Finally, the punitive damages award must fail because it was awarded jointly to Mr. and Mrs. Campbell rather than separately to each plaintiff. Even if the trial court had properly severed Inez Campbell’s claims from her husband’s, which it did not, the punitive award would have to be remanded under Crookston due to its joint nature. Mrs. Campbell’s claims were entirely independent from Mr. Campbell’s, but because punitive damages were awarded jointly as to both these plaintiffs, we cannot now know what portion of the award the jury intended to be owed to Inez Campbell and what portion it intended to be owed to Curtis Campbell. Accordingly, because Mrs. Campbell’s claims for fraud and intentional infliction of emotional distress must be remanded while Mr. Campbell’s need not — and because, as explained, the jury was inappropriately instructed to commingle the two plaintiffs in its consideration of the fourth and sixth Crook-ston factors — the punitive damages award must be vacated and remanded for further *1180 proceedings. 6

IV. CONCLUSION

¶ 156 Inez Campbell had no standing to sue State Farm for bad faith, and the jury never found that State Farm was liable to her in that regard. Her only actionable claims were for fraud and intentional infliction of emotional distress. As a result, the trial court’s multiple instructions that State Farm had been found liable to Mrs. Campbell for bad faith tainted both the entire verdict as to Mrs. Campbell and the punitive damages assessed against State Farm in behalf of Mr. Campbell. Accordingly, I would (1) reverse as to Mrs. Campbell’s claim for bad faith, (2) vacate and remand for a new trial on Mrs. Campbell’s claims for fraud and intentional infliction of emotional distress, (3) affirm on the issue of State Farm’s liability to Mr. Campbell, and (4) vacate and remand for a new trial on the issue of punitive damages as to Mr. Campbell inasmuch as that award was rendered jointly to both Mr. Campbell and Mrs. Campbell.

. State Farm raises the issue of Mrs. Campbell's standing to sue for bad faith in point IV.A of its appellate brief.

. Indeed, the overwhelming majority of jurisdictions follow exactly the same rule Utah does: that "the duly of good faith and fair dealing derives from and exists solely because of the contractual relationship of the parties.” Austero v. Nat'l Cas. Co., 62 Cal.App.3d 511 , 133 Cal. Rptr. 107, 110 (1976); see, e.g., Lowe v. Am. Med. Int’l, 494 So.2d 413, 414 (Ala.1986) ("The cause of action for the tort of bad faith refusal to pay was created to protect only the person for whose benefit the insurance payments should have been made.”); Hatchwell v. Blue Shield of California, 198 Cal.App.3d 1027 , 244 Cal.Rptr. 249, 253 (1988) ("Although [Mrs. Hatchwell] was eligible for health care benefits as a Dependent Subscriber [on Mr. Hatchwell's insurance policy], and as such may be termed a 'co-insured’ or ‘dependent beneficiary,’ as she urges, this is not sufficient to establish standing to sue for breach of contract and bad faith based upon the denial of benefits to [Mr. Hatchwell].” (citations omitted)); Soto v. Royal Globe Ins. Co., 184 Cal.App.3d 420 , 229 Cal.Rptr. 192, 197 (1986) ("One who is not a party to the insurance contract and the accompanying implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing may not maintain an action for breach of the covenant.”); Eastham v. Nationwide Mut. Ins. Co., 66 Ohio App.3d 843 , 586 N.E.2d 1131, 1133 (1990) (holding that a wife did not have standing to bring a bad faith claim against her automobile liability insurer for failing to timely pay the medical expenses of her deceased son, even though she was insured under the policy); United Fire Ins. Co. v. McClelland, 105 Nev. 504 , 780 P.2d 193, 197-98 (1989) ("[A] wife's coverage as a dependent under her husband's health insurance policy does not give her standing to enforce her husband's contract rights for bad faith denial of health care benefits."); Vecchiarelli v. Cont’l Ins. Co., 216 A.D.2d 909 , 628 N.Y.S.2d 892, 893 (1995) (upholding the dismissal of a spouse's claim for bad faith where no contractual nexus was present); see also Correa v. Pa. Mfrs. Ass’n Ins. Co., 618 F.Supp. 915, 929 (D.Del.1985) (finding that the duty of good faith and fair dealing does not extend to the spouse of someone insured under a workers' compensation policy); Transp. Ins. Co. v. Archer, 832 S.W.2d 403, 405 (Tex.Ct.App.1992) (disallowing a spouse's suit for bad faith when her husband was denied benefit payments from his workers' compensation carrier).

. As explained above, there was good reason the jury in the first stage of the bifurcated trial was never asked questions as to breach of duty to Inez Campbell. State Farm did not owe a duty to Inez Campbell to settle the case in her behalf. Inez Campbell was not the driver of the vehicle involved in the accident and had no exposure of liability for claims arising from the accident. For the same reason, she was not named as a defendant in the underlying case in Cache County-

. Justice Durham, in a single paragraph, apparently takes exception to the entire dissent on the ground that the parties failed to raise the "wording” of the trial court's faulty verdict from the first stage of the case below or on appeal. Despite this bald assertion, State Farm did specifically challenge on appeal the trial court’s determination that Mrs. Campbell had standing to sue for bad faith. In fact, State Farm argued that "[t]he court below” should not have "concluded that Mrs. Campbell had standing” based "solely on her marital relationship to Curtis Campbell.” Moreover, this court has repeatedly held that we “may consider issues raised for the first time on appeal if the trial court committed plain error.” Julian v. State, 966 P.2d 249, 258 (Utah 1998); see also, e.g., Green v. Louder, 2001 UT 62, ¶ 34 , 29 P.3d 638 (Durham, J.); State v. Helmick, 2000 UT 70, ¶ 8 , 9 P.3d 164 (Durham, J.); Berenda v. Langford, 914 P.2d 45 , 51 n. 1 (Utah 1996); Salt Lake City v. Ohms, 881 P.2d 844, 847 (Utah 1994); State v. Germonto, 868 P.2d 50, 58 (Utah 1993) (Durham, J.); State v. Brown, 853 P.2d 851, 853-54 (Utah 1992) (Durham, J.). The trial court’s actions in this case unequivocally constituted plain error, a point made repeatedly throughout the dissent. See supra ¶¶ 135, 140, 143, 144, 145, 149; infra ¶ 155.

. Accord. United States v. Costello, 526 F.Supp. 847, 848-50 (W.D.Tex.1981) (granting a new trial where a juror conducted ballistic experiments and reported the results to the jury); Frede v. Downs, 101 Ill.App.3d 812 , 57 Ill.Dec. 355 , 428 N.E.2d 1035, 1037 (1981) (remanding for a new trial a collision case in which the jury referred to a boating handbook not admitted as evidence); Brockie v. Omo Constr., Inc., 255 Mont. 495 , 844 P.2d 61, 63-64 (1992) (reversing trial court’s decision not to grant a new trial where jury foreman researched physics questions at issue in the case and reported his findings to other jurors); Arthur v. Washington Iron Works, 22 Wash.App. 61 , 587 P.2d 626, 629 (1978) (ordering a new trial where jurors went to the public *1178 library "looking for handbooks” related to the case and “examin[ed] the yellow pages of the telephone book concerning" witnesses that had been called during trial).

. Contending that Croolcston does not question the legitimacy of joint punitive damage awards, the majority opinion assails the argument that the punitive award in this case must be vacated. However, the majority’s contention must fail for at least two reasons. First, in characterizing the necessity for vacating the punitive award solely "due to its joint nature,” Justice Durham oversimplifies the reasons stated above for why the award must fail. While Crookston did recognize the policy objectives of punitive damages to include "punish[ment] and deterrence],” 817 P.2d at 807 , we specifically held in Crookston that awards rendered for such purposes must be constrained by well established "parameters” that tether punitive damages to some sense of reasonableness in order to avoid "excessive awards.” Id. at 808 . Those parameters include the seven factors listed above, which "must be considered [by the jury] in assessing the amount of puni-tives.” Id. (emphasis added). Because, as explained above, the jury was unable to properly consider two of those factors in this case due to the trial court's erroneous instruction that State Farm had been found liable to Mrs. Campbell for bad faith, the punitive award must be vacated and remanded. See id.; C.T. ex rel. Taylor v. Johnson, 1999 UT 35, ¶¶ 17-26 , 977 P.2d 479 (upholding a punitive award only because the trial court's failure to instruct the jury to consider all of the seven Crookston factors was harmless since the jury did in fact fully and properly assess each factor); Ong Int'l (U.S.A.) Inc. v. 11th Ave. Corp., 850 P.2d 447, 458-59 (Utah 1993) (affirming a punitive award because the jury "made a detailed finding based on the seven factors enunciated in Crookston ”). Indeed, nowhere in her opinion does Justice Durham even attempt to address this issue. Second, there is good reason why the "joint nature of the punitive damages award was never questioned" in Crook-ston. Unlike the case now before us, neither of the parties involved in Crookston ever had their standing to sue questioned, nor was the issue raised on appeal. Consequently, the problematic situation created here — where one party who was awarded punitives had every right to sue but the other party given the same award should have never been involved in the lawsuit — simply did not exist in Croolcston. See 817 P.2d at 794 (recognizing that both Mr. and Mrs. Crookston were named as insureds in their homeowner’s policy).