American Home Assurance Co. v. Oceaneering International, Inc.

609 F. App'x 171
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
DecidedApril 27, 2015
Docket14-20222
StatusUnpublished

This text of 609 F. App'x 171 (American Home Assurance Co. v. Oceaneering International, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
American Home Assurance Co. v. Oceaneering International, Inc., 609 F. App'x 171 (5th Cir. 2015).

Opinion

PER CURIAM: *

Defendant-Appellant Oceaneering International, Inc., appeals the district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of Plaintiff-Appellee American Home Assurance Company. The district court’s grant of summary judgment had the effect of denying insurance coverage for claims made by Oceaneering. American Home cross-appeals the district court’s determination that Oceaneering’s claim was for “property damage” within the meaning of the insurance policy. 1 For the reasons that follow, we AFFIRM.

I.

The facts of the incident underlying this claim for insurance coverage were set out in our opinion in Chevron USA, Inc. v. Aker Maritime, Inc. (Chevron I), 604 F.3d 888 (5th Cir.2010):

The Genesis Spar, an oil production facility, sits 150 miles south of New Orleans in the Gulf of Mexico. A riser system attaches the floating spar to the ocean floor, 2,600 feet below.
Chevron hired Aker Maritime, Inc. (“Aker”) in 1998 to provide design and engineering services for the initial construction of the riser system. Stability problems plagued the riser system after its completion, leading to a crack in the spar’s hull in 2000. Oceaneering International, Inc. (“Oceaneering”) repaired the hull at Chevron’s request, and Chevron put Aker in charge of designing a permanent fix. Large bolts called carriage bolts hold the riser system together, and Aker ordered the bolts from Lone Star, according to testimony a “well-known” bolt manufacturer that also distributed others’ bolts. Aker initially requested eight-inch Grade 5 carriage bolts, which Chevron had approved. When Lone Star responded that it had no Grade 5 bolts, Aker placed an order for 2,092 Grade 2 carriage bolts, costing a total of $878.64. Instead of shipping Grade 2 bolts, Lone Star shipped Grade A bolts manufactured by Oriental Fastener Co. (“Oriental”). At the time, Lone Star routinely substituted Grade A bolts for Grade 2 bolts, then a widespread practice in the fastener industry.
Lone Star shipped the bolts to Ocea-neering, which was in charge of assem *173 bling the risers. The bolts were marked “OF,” indicating the manufacturer,, and arrived in shipping boxes bearing the Lone Star mark. They also arrived with a packing slip noting that they were either “manufactured or distributed” by Lone Star. Oceaneering accepted the bolts, failing to notice the substitution.
The first bolt failure occurred on July 9, 2001, when a bolt head popped off one of the first bolts used in the risers. Jack Couch, the project manager for Oceaneering, contacted Aker’s Mike Harville and told Harville that he thought the bolts were a “serious weak link.” Couch took a picture of the failed bolt and sent it to Harville. Harville told Oceaneering that it had applied too much torque to the bolt, as Oceaneering was applying torque to Grade 2 bolts that it believed to be Grade 5 bolts. Oceaneering continued assembly of the riser system using the torque appropriate for Grade 2 bolts, apparently without incident. In August 2001, however, Aker took over riser assembly, and Oceaneering sent the parts, including the bolts, to Aker. Like Oceaneering’s employees, Aker’s employees failed to detect that the bolts were Grade A bolts.
After Aker completed installation of the riser system, Oceaneering divers inspected the construction on July 12 and 13, 2002. During the dives, live audio and video were fed to a room aboard the Genesis Spar, where Chevron representatives could see and hear everything the divers saw. As documented in Ocea-neering’s diving logs, the video inspection showed several bolt heads were missing. In addition, Harville testified that a Chevron employee, Bill Donahue, called him regarding a problem with bolt installation, likely on Sunday, July 14.
In the next month, Aker, Oceaneering, and Chevron representatives investigated the bolt failures. During the review, the team discovered that the bolts were Grade A, not Grade 2. It later determined that not only were the bolts the wrong kind, they were also defective due to a defective manufacturing process, including failure to stress-relieve the bolts and to heat-treat them.
Chevron sued on July 15, 2003, a year and a day after the Oceaneering dives, but less than a year after it completed its investigation. Its complaint included claims for negligence, strict liability, redhibition, products liability, and breach of contract. Aker brought claims for indemnity against Oceaneer-ing and Lone Star. To avoid inconsistent verdicts, the parties agreed to try all the claims other than the contract claims to a jury, after which the district court would make factual findings based on the trial record and render judgment on the contract claims. The jury returned a verdict in favor of Chevron on all claims. It found that none of Chevron’s claims were prescribed. As to negligence, it found Aker, Lone Star, Oriental, and Oceaneering were all negligent and it apportioned fault under La. Civ. Code art. 2323: 40 percent to Aker, 35 percent to Lone Star, 5 percent to Ocea-neering, and 20 percent to Oriental. It determined that Lone Star and Oriental were manufacturers and imposed liability in redhibition and under the LPLA. Finally, it determined that Chevron’s total damages were $2,968,526.42.

Id. at 890-92 (footnotes omitted). 2 With respect to the contract claims relating to *174 indemnification of Aker, the district court determined that it was bound by the jury verdict. Id. at 892. The district court also ordered that Lone Star pay $151,167.32, and Oriental pay $86,381.33, in attorney’s fees to Chevron. Id.

In Chevron I, the Fifth Circuit affirmed the award of compensatory damages, reversed the award of attorney’s fees, and remanded for further consideration of the contract claims. Id. at 902. Discussing the challenge to the attorney’s fees award, the court determined that attorney’s fees “are allowable only if Chevron has a redhi-bition claim under La. Civ.Code art. 2545.” 3 Id. at 899. Although Chevron met that provision’s “basic requirements for an award of attorney fees,” the “hitch” was the Louisiana Products Liability Act (“LPLA”), which “ ‘establishes the exclusive theories of liability for manufacturers for damage caused by their products,’ ” id. at 899-900 (quoting La.Rev.Stat. § 9:2800.52), and which explicitly prohibits the recovery of attorney’s fees, La.Rev. Stat. § 9:2800.53(5).

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Bluebook (online)
609 F. App'x 171, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/american-home-assurance-co-v-oceaneering-international-inc-ca5-2015.