Justia U.S. 8th Circuit Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

Plaintiff, as trustee for a creditors' trust, held a $56 million stipulated judgment against Paul Yarrick, a former officer of Interstate Bakeries. Interstate emerged from a voluntary Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization. In the bankruptcy proceedings, the Trust obtained the right to bring the action that later resulted in the judgment against Yarrick. The Trust received this right in exchange for certain concessions, including an agreement to execute only against potentially liable insurers. After the Trust obtained the judgment against Yarrick, the Trust brought the present action against defendants in an attempt to collect against several director and officer policies that named Yarrick as an insured. The court held that, because the Assignment Agreement that transferred to the Trust the limited right to sue Yarrick for insurance proceeds "absolved" Yarrick from "payment," the $56 million judgment was not a "Loss" as required by the plain language of the policy. The court also rejected the abandoned-insurance argument and held that Missouri law did not allow estoppel to extend coverage over otherwise uncovered claims. Accordingly, the judgment of the district court finding no coverage and granting summary judgment in favor of the insurers was affirmed.

Plaintiff brought suit seeking declaratory judgment and asserted claims for breach of contract and bad faith when its insurers asserted that certain sublimits in plaintiff's policy capped reimbursement for damages caused by flood and that those sublimits applied to both property damage and business interruption losses. Plaintiff claimed that the sublimits only applied to property damage. The court concluded that there was no factual dispute regarding whether an insurance brokerage employee shared the same understanding as the underwriters and whether that understanding bound plaintiff. Consequently, the interpretation of the contract did not depend "on the credibility of extrinsic evidence or on a choice among reasonable inferences that can be drawn from the extrinsic evidence," and thus the district court did not err when it granted insurers' judgment as a matter of law on the declaratory judgment and breach of contract claims.

KAAPA managed a facility that distilled corn into ethanol. KAAPA commenced a diversity action after Affiliated denied KAAPA's claim to recover the cost of extensive repairs and business interruption losses. A jury found that some losses were caused by "collapse" of storage tanks, awarded KAAPA property damage, but denied its claim for business interruption losses. Both sides appealed raising various issues. Applying Nebraska law, the court affirmed the district court's denial of Affiliated's motion for judgment as a matter of law. The court held, however, that the district court committed reversible error in instructing the jury on the meaning of the term "collapse" and remanded for a new trial. The court did not decide the loss-mitigation and other post-trial issues raised in KAAPA's cross-appeal.

Appellant appealed the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of Sun Life in an Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), 29 U.S.C. 1001 et seq., benefits case. At issue was whether Sun Life was entitled to offset from appellant's employer-provided long-term disability benefits the amount that appellant received in Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) benefits each month. The court held that VA benefits, for a wartime service-related disability, as a matter of statutory construction, did not derive from an act that was "similar to" the SSA or RRA, which were both federal insurance programs based upon employment and the amount of an award under their terms depended upon how much had been paid in. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded to the district court with directions to enter judgment in favor of appellant.

Plaintiffs commenced a diversity action against defendant, asserting claims for breach of the insurance contract and for vexatious refusal to pay. Applying Missouri law, the district court granted defendant summary judgment, concluding that the insurance policy at issue unambiguously excluded losses caused by plaintiffs' CEO, a shareholder, and by plaintiffs' COO, a non-shareholder, acting in collusion with the CEO. The court affirmed and held that the Officer-Shareholder exclusion was consistent with Missouri public policy, and in the alternative, the Officer-Shareholder exclusion was unambiguous and excluded plaintiffs' claim.

This case stemmed from an Excess Disability Income Reinsurance Agreement (Treaty). At issue was whether a reinsurance agreement between plaintiff and defendant contained a follow-the-settlements provision. The court held that there was no ambiguity in the Treaty and that it contained a follow-the-settlements provision. The court also held that the statute of limitations barred plaintiff's challenges to several claims submitted by defendant and defendant's conduct did not give rise to tolling under Connecticut law. The court further held that the district court properly granted summary judgment on defendant's counterclaims for breach of contract and for breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing.

Liberty Mutual sued Pella in the district court for declaratory judgment where the suit was sought to determine the scope of Liberty Mutual's obligation, under general commercial liability (GCL) policies issued to Pella, to reimburse Pella's defense costs in two underlying lawsuits. Both parties appealed the judgment of the district court. The court held that the district court did not err in concluding that Liberty Mutual's duty to reimburse Pella's defense costs should be determined by looking at the allegations in the complaint to determine if they stated a covered claim where Liberty Mutual would still have no duty to defend even if it had to reimburse defense costs in a suit where an "occurrence" was alleged but not yet an established fact. The court also held that because the underlying suits did not allege an "occurrence," Liberty Mutual did not owe Pella a duty to reimburse its costs in defending either action. Therefore, the court need not address Liberty Mutual's alternative argument. The court further held that the district court did not commit reversible error in granting summary judgment to Liberty Mutual. The court finally held that, in light of its conclusion that Liberty Mutual had no duty to reimburse Pella's defense costs in the underlying suits, the court need not address the issue of defense costs. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment to Liberty Mutual on Pella's bad-faith counterclaim. The court reversed the district court's order granting summary judgment to Pella on Liberty Mutual's claim for declaratory judgment and remanded with instructions to enter declaratory judgment in favor of Liberty Mutual.

LCI Equipments, Inc. (LLC) was a Texas corporation that imported and sold the tractor that killed Rudy Slater in a roll-over accident. Wanda Slater, an Arkansas resident and Rudy's wife, commenced a wrongful death action in state court, asserting negligence and strict product liability claims against LCI, and others, focusing primarily on the tractor's lack of a roll-over protection system (ROPS). LCI's insurer, also a Texas corporation, denied coverage and refused to defend LCI under its Commercial General Liability policy. With the wrongful death suit pending, LCI assigned its rights in the policy to Slater who then commenced this action against the insurer in Arkansas state court. On appeal, Slater asserted for the first time the absence of diversity jurisdiction and further argued that the district court erred in construing the policy exclusion. The court held that, as here, where Slater structured the case, naming LCI as a nominal plaintiff, the district court had, and properly exercised, diversity jurisdiction. The court also noted that the partial assignment of the $100 interest retained by LCI did not defeat jurisdiction. The court held that Slater's argument that the insurer had a duty to defend because of LCI's failure to install ROPS safety equipment was not properly preserved in the district court and therefore, the court declined to consider it further. The court also agreed with the district court's conclusion that LaBatt Co. v. Hartford Lloyd's Ins. Co., reflected Texas law. Moreover, the definition of "Your product" in the insurer's policy expressly excluded the "providing of or failure to provide warnings or instructions," unlike the exclusion at issue in LaBatt. Therefore, the insurer's contention was more consistent with the plain language of the policy and Slater had failed to show plain error. Accordingly, the judgment of the district court was affirmed.

Auto Owners Insurance Company (Auto Owners) appealed an order granting summary judgment in favor of appellee and awarding her $124,500, the face value of the insurance policy sold to her by Auto Owners. Because Schubert owned a one-half interest in the dwelling covered by the policy, which was completely destroyed by fire, Auto Owners offered to pay her half of the policy value. Auto Owners cited a provision within the policy which limited recovery to "[no] more than the insurable interest the insured had in the covered property at the time of the loss." The district court declared this provision void as contrary to the public policy expressed in the Missouri valued policy statute, Mo. Rev. Stat. 379.140, and alternatively found its language ambiguous so as to allow appellee to recover the face value of the insurance policy. The court agreed with the district court's conclusions as to both points and affirmed the judgment. The court also held that, after initially questioning its jurisdiction over the matter, the case satisfied the $75,000 amount-in-controversy requirement and jurisdiction was proper.

3M Company sued Inspired Technologies, Inc. (ITI) for allegedly unfair and false advertising, in violation of the Lanham Act, 15 U.S.C. 1051, et seq., and the Minnesota Uniform Deceptive Trade Practices Act (MDPTA), Minnesota Statutes 325D.43-325D.48, alleging that ITI engaged in an advertising campaign for its Frog Tape product that depicted 3M Tape as performing poorly in certain respects. ITI tendered a defense of the lawsuit to its liability-insurance carrier, AMCO Insurance Company (AMCO), and the lawsuit ultimately settled. Following the settlement, AMCO filed the instant declaratory judgment action against ITI, seeking a declaration that it did not owe ITI any duty to defend or indemnify because the insurance policy's knowledge-of-false exclusion excluded the 3M suit from coverage. The court found that the two interrogatory answers upon which the district court relied did not reflect that 3M alleged ITI's knowledge of falsity as to all the purportedly unfair advertising. Consequently, the court held that AMCO failed to satisfy its burden of demonstrating, as a matter of law, that every claim in 3M's complaint fell clearly outside the policy's coverage. Accordingly, because 3M alleged at least one arguably coverable claim, AMCO owed ITI a duty under Minnesota law to defend the entire suit and therefore, the district court's grant of summary judgment was reversed and remanded.