A member of Colorado’s second-highest court said on Thursday that she was skeptical insurance companies are entitled to collect crime victim restitution from defendants convicted of misdemeanor traffic offenses, but lawmakers had not provided clear direction one way or the other.

A three-judge panel for the Court of Appeals agreed the evidence did not render Lukas S. Lockett liable for paying $24,694 to Allstate Insurance Company after his intoxication caused him to crash into a policyholder’s vehicle. Allstate paid the vehicle owner for the loss of her car and sought crime victim restitution in Lockett’s criminal case.

Previously, the Court of Appeals concluded insurance companies can be “victims” who are entitled to restitution. However, Lockett’s case centered on one sentence in Colorado’s restitution law that the appellate court had not looked at before.

For vehicle and traffic offenses that are not felonies, the law states, victims can only be paid restitution when their losses are not already covered by an insurance policy or some other agreement to compensate them.

Because the prosecution in Lockett’s case had not established Allstate’s $24,694 payout to its policyholder was not recoverable through other means, the appellate panel overturned that portion of the restitution order — which constituted nearly the entirety of Lockett’s $26,000 financial obligation to his victims.

Judge Jaclyn Casey Brown wrote separately to say she was unsure lawmakers intended for insurers to seek restitution payments at all in cases like Lockett’s. She researched the legislature’s enactment of the legal provision in 2003, where it appeared advocates were concerned about insurance companies seeking both crime victim restitution and filing civil lawsuits to recover their losses.

“Precluding restitution to insurance companies in misdemeanor traffic cases is consistent with the desire to have losses caused by such offenses determined in civil court,” wrote Brown.

In the underlying case, Lockett crashed his car into another vehicle, which in turn crashed into a food truck. He pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor of driving under the influence. Prosecutors sought $500 for the owner of the vehicle to cover her deductible to Allstate, and $1,000 for the food truck owner for his insurance deductible.

The remaining $24,694 was requested for Allstate to cover the loss of the first vehicle. Lockett challenged whether Allstate could even seek crime victim restitution under state law, but Denver District Court Judge Karen L. Brody believed it could.

She noted the prohibition on restitution for traffic misdemeanors “applies only to those victims whose losses may be covered in whole or in part by an insurance policy — not to other types of victims, such as insurance companies, or victims who do not have insurance covering losses resulting from non-felony criminal conduct.”

The Court of Appeals panel agreed Allstate was eligible to collect crime victim restitution. But Brody neglected to find that Allstate’s losses could not be compensated through its own insurance or by other agreements.

“(N)o evidence addressed whether Allstate could be partially or wholly compensated for its loss,” wrote Judge Katharine E. Lum for herself and Judge Elizabeth L. Harris in the Jan. 16 opinion. Therefore, the prosecution had not proven Lockett was liable for paying restitution to Allstate.

Brown, in her concurrence, looked closely at the language of the restitution law. Without challenging the Court of Appeals’ prior determination that an insurance company is a victim, she was unsure whether anyone but “direct victims” could seek restitution for misdemeanor traffic crimes.

In her reading, the 2003 law change was meant to clarify when crime victim restitution was appropriate and when a civil lawsuit for damages was the correct path. In Brown’s view, “the legislature intended that insurance companies litigate their liability in civil court.”

“All that said,” she concluded, “if the legislature had intended to preclude insurance companies from recovering restitution at all in non-felony … traffic offense cases, it could have made that intent much clearer.”

The case is People v. Lockett.