Although taxpayers have some legal right to oversee the insurer, the money isn't really theirs, he said.

"Those funds have always belonged to private owners," Jordan argued in court.

But the state says otherwise and has challenged 3rd District Judge Timothy Hanson's March 2004 ruling that it has no ownership in the fund - or its more than $830 million in assets - other than as a policyholder.

Assistant Attorney General Thomas Roberts argues the fund was created as a public entity, and pointed to a 1998 statute that details a process for privatizing government entities that lists the fund.

"If it were privately owned, why would they talk about the process of privatization?" he asked Tuesday.

The ownership dispute began when the fund filed a lawsuit against the state last year, attempting to prove taxpayers had no claim to it. It was offering insurance coverage in other states, and any ownership by Utah jeopardized that business because some other states ban state-owned or -controlled entities from competing against private companies.

Since then, Idaho and Indiana insurance regulators have allowed the fund to do business in their states through its subsidiary, Advantage.

According to 2003 figures, the most recent figures available, the fund reported a net income of $50 million, $20 million of which has been returned to policyholders in the form of dividends. As the largest policyholder, the state's share was $545,000.

In another case before the high court Tuesday, the state is seeking to make sure it can collect a share of punitive damages awards received by Utah plaintiffs.

At issue is a ruling by 3rd District Judge Frank Noel. He struck down a 1989 law that had allowed the state to take half of all punitive damage awards above $20,000 in civil lawsuits. Noel determined the law amounted to an unconstitutional taking of property in the case of Utah mall magnate John Price, now the U.S. ambassador to the African nation of Mauritius.

A jury ordered Price's company to pay $5.5 million in punitive damages for cheating two former partners in a shopping mall deal. Plaintiffs Armand and Virginia Smith stood to lose $3.3 million of that to the state and also faced paying federal taxes on the full amount.

The 1989 statute has since been amended, but during Tuesday's arguments Chief Justice Christine M. Durham questioned whether others might use any ruling in Price's favor to challenge the new law.

Attorneys representing Inez Campbell and her late husband, Curtis, are watching the Price appeal closely. The state has said it wants a share of the $9 million punitive damages award in their case against State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co., although the Campbells' attorneys argue their case is not subject to the law because it began before 1989.

The justices will issue rulings in both appeals at a later date.