Asociación de Suscripción Conjunta del Seguro de Responsabilidad Obligatorio v. Juarbe-Jiménez

659 F.3d 42, 2011 WL 4488380
CourtCourt of Appeals for the First Circuit
DecidedSeptember 29, 2011
DocketNo. 10-2167
StatusPublished
Cited by51 cases

This text of 659 F.3d 42 (Asociación de Suscripción Conjunta del Seguro de Responsabilidad Obligatorio v. Juarbe-Jiménez) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the First Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Asociación de Suscripción Conjunta del Seguro de Responsabilidad Obligatorio v. Juarbe-Jiménez, 659 F.3d 42, 2011 WL 4488380 (1st Cir. 2011).

Opinion

LYNCH, Chief Judge.

At issue is when a facial Takings Clause claim attacking a statute and regulations accrues for statute of limitations purposes. The district court concluded that the claim here was untimely. Asociación de Suscripción Conjunta del Seguro de Responsabilidad Obligatorio v. Juarbe-Jiménez, 720 F.Supp.2d 152 (D.P.R.2010). We agree and affirm the dismissal of this case.

I.

This case arises out of Puerto Rico’s compulsory automobile liability insurance scheme. In December of 1995 the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico enacted Act 253, which required all motor vehicles to be covered by certain minimum automobile liability insurance. The purpose of the insurance is to cover “damages caused to motor vehicles of third parties as a result of a traffic accident, for which the owner of the vehicle covered by this insurance is legally liable and which, through its use, has caused said damages.” P.R. Laws Ann. tit. 26, § 8051.

At the same time, the Commonwealth created the Asociación de Suscripción Con-junta del Seguro de Responsabilidad Obligatorio (the Association) to provide compulsory liability insurance to those vehicle owners rejected by private insurers or who have opted out of purchasing liability insurance. We have held that the Association, while it was created “under some direction by the commonwealth,” is “private in nature.” Asociación De Suscripción Conjunta Del Seguro De Responsabilidad Obligatorio v. Flores Galarza, 484 F.3d 1, 20 (1st Cir.2007) (quoting Arroyo-Melecio v. P.R. Am. Ins. Co., 398 F.3d 56, 62 (1st Cir.2005)) (internal quotation marks omitted). This conclusion has since been reinforced by the passage of Act 201, in December'2009, which amends Act 253 and defines the Association as a “private Association.” P.R. Laws Ann. tit. 26, §§ 8052(c), 8055(a), amended by Act 201 of Dec. 29, 2009, arts. 3(c), 6(a). At present, the Association provides compulsory insurance for over 80 percent of the vehicles in Puerto Rico.1

[45]*45The legislation which created the Association also gave the defendant Insurance Commissioner the power to regulate it. See P.R. Laws Ann. tit. 26, § 8055(c), (f). In 1996, through Regulation 5493, called Rule LXIX, the Commissioner set up a scheme which required the Association to annually determine its profits and losses in the same manner as in the Annual Statement required by the Insurance Code. More pertinently, that Rule also provided:

The Members shall share in the annual profits and losses of the Association in the proportional participation of each of the Members for the year for which such profit or losses are determined.

The “members” are all of the insurance earners who are licensed to offer automobile insurance in Puerto Rico and underwrite more than one percent of the total volume of such premiums in Puerto Rico. P.R. Laws Ann. tit. 26, §§ 8052(b), 8055(a).

That allocation of profit was changed by the Commissioner in December 2000, by revisions contained in Regulation 6254, Rule LXX, as follows:

The members shall share in the annual profits or losses of the Association in the proportional participation of each of the members for the year for which such profits or losses are determined. With regards to the participation in the profits, the same shall not exceed the maximum percentage established in the premium dollar for the profit, applying the earned premiums for said year.
The profit for each year in excess of the amounts distributed due to the participation provided for in this paragraph shall be accumulated in a special reserve that shall be exclusively used for the future stabilization of the premiums of the compulsory liability insurance and the future expansion of the benefits provided there under. Under no circumstance shall the excess accumulated in this reserve be used for the distribution of profits provided for in the previous paragraph.

Pursuant to this December 2000 regulation, which is located in Article 20(e) of Rule LXX, the Commissioner established that the Association’s members may receive a distribution of up to a maximum of five percent of the annual premium profits.2 The remaining 95 percent of the profits must be placed in the Special Reserve, where they must remain until the Association chooses to use them to stabilize premiums or expand benefits. Neither the Association, nor its members, challenged this rule when it was enacted.

Eventually, the Commissioner required an audit of these distributions and the Special Reserve fund. On June 12, 2008, the Commissioner issued a resolution resulting from an audit of the Association for the period from July 1, 2001 to December 31, 2004. In the resolution, the Commissioner stated that distributions to members were capped at five percent of the annual premium profits and could not in-[46]*46elude any distribution of investment income 3 or “other” income.4 All investment and “other” income must be placed in the Special Reserve.

The resolution also indicated that distributions to members in any given year could not exceed the net underwriting gain for that year. Based on the audit findings, the resolution ordered the Association to recover $8,266,767 in non-complying distributions issued to members for the 2001-2004 audit period. Additionally, because the Association realized a net underwriting loss in 2005, the Association was directed to recover the full distribution to members in that year, amounting to $7,593,556.5

The Puerto Rico Court of Appeals upheld these portions of the audit against claims by the Association that the Commissioner lacked statutory authority to impose restrictions on the distribution of investment and other income.6 Comm’r of Ins. v. Compulsory Liab. Ins. Joint Underwriting Ass’n, No. E-2005-62, KLRA200801403, 2009 WL 2419983 (P.R.Cir. May 19, 2009).7

The Association asserts that it has complied with these requirements in the sense that it has put into the Special Reserve all income in excess of the amount it was allowed to distribute to its members. It is unclear whether the Association has complied with the audit resolution. As of [47]*47December 31, 2008, the Special Reserve contained $159,267,250 in undistributed profits.

The Association protests that it cannot be made to place all of the profits (aside from the five percent distribution to its members) into the Special Reserve fund, to be used only for the benefit of the consumer insureds, because these restrictions amount to an unconstitutional taking. It also makes on appeal a related argument that it cannot be forced to include in this Reserve its investment income and its other income, as is required by the 2008 audit resolution.

II.

On November 4, 2008, the Association brought suit against Puerto Rico Insurance Commissioner Dorelisse Juarbe-Jiménez pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983

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659 F.3d 42, 2011 WL 4488380, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/asociacion-de-suscripcion-conjunta-del-seguro-de-responsabilidad-ca1-2011.