Morales v. Auto-Owners Insurance

The majority exemplifies in marked degree that hard cases make bad law.1 While plaintiffs injuries are certainly tragic,2 so too is the damage done to the fabric of our law of contracts by today’s inappropriate utilization of the estoppel doctrine to allow creation of a new unbargained-for contract between the parties. I would affirm the decision of the trial court and the Court of Appeals.

The majority concedes that language in the insurance policy called for an automatic nonrenewal of the six-month insurance policy, given plaintiff’s late pay*306ments. That should end this case because estoppel…