Benham v. Manufacturers & Wholesalers Indemnity Exchange

685 P.2d 249, 1984 Colo. App. LEXIS 1089
CourtColorado Court of Appeals
DecidedApril 19, 1984
Docket80CA0756, 80CA0983
StatusPublished
Cited by20 cases

This text of 685 P.2d 249 (Benham v. Manufacturers & Wholesalers Indemnity Exchange) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Colorado Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Benham v. Manufacturers & Wholesalers Indemnity Exchange, 685 P.2d 249, 1984 Colo. App. LEXIS 1089 (Colo. Ct. App. 1984).

Opinion

KELLY, Judge.

This consolidated appeal challenges the rulings entered in two proceedings involving Manufacturers and Wholesalers Indemnity Exchange, a defunct interinsurance exchange, and W.J. Digby, Inc., a trucking company and former policyholder of Manufacturers. Manufacturers was placed in receivership in 1975. The division of the district court in which the receivership was filed (Receivership Court) authorized the receiver to sue former Manufacturers’ policyholders to recover assessment liabilities, and suit was thereupon filed in another division of the district court (Assessment Court) against a number of former policyholders, including Digby. Digby appeals the Assessment Court’s rulings striking several of its defenses, imposing assessment liability against Digby as a matter of law, and awarding the receiver attorney’s fees and prejudgment interest. We affirm the challenged rulings of both courts.

Manufacturers was an interinsurance exchange organized in 1919 and operated pursuant to § 10-13-101, et seq., C.R.S. An interinsurance exchange is an unincorporated association of individuals, partnerships, and corporations, called subscribers, who exchange contracts of insurance with each other, providing indemnity among themselves. Section 10-13-101, C.R.S. The subscribers insure each other; thus, each subscriber is both an insurer and an insured. Manufacturers’ major asset consisted of the insurance premiums paid by its subscribers; its claims and expenses were paid from its premiums, and its policyholders shared in its profits.

By means of a provision in every Manufacturers’ insurance policy, its subscribers were obligated to share in its losses. Each subscriber was subject to payment of an assessment on demand in an amount of up to one year’s premium per policy. Here, both a 1974 and a 1975 policy are involved.

Digby is a trucking company which owns and operates its own trucks and also employs independent truck drivers to meet its customers’ needs, as circumstances require. It has been and continues to be Digby’s position in this litigation that it acted only as agent for its independent truckers in procuring the policy from Manufacturers in which Digby was the named insured, and that, accordingly, it was the independent truckers, and not Digby, who were the “insured” under the policy.

Excess losses in 1974 and 1975 resulted in an investigation of Manufacturers by the Colorado Commissioner of Insurance, and the exchange was placed in receivership. A receiver was appointed, and Manufacturers was ordered to stop issuing insurance policies effective December 1, 1975. Accordingly, after that date, Manufacturers’ *252 principal asset was the contingent assessment liability under the provisions of its previously issued policies.

The Receivership Court authorized the receiver to levy assessments on all subscribers having policies in effect in 1974 and 1975, and the receiver sued 46 former subscribers having the largest outstanding assessment liabilities. As a result of settlements, Digby was the sole remaining defendant at the time of trial.

After Digby’s motion to intervene in the Receivership Court to challenge the reasonableness of the assessment was denied by the Receivership Court, the Assessment Court granted the receiver’s motion for partial summary judgment, ruling that a 1975 insurance policy had been found in Digby’s files, and that Manufacturers had issued the policy to Digby in 1975. The Assessment Court also ruled that Digby had paid premiums to and had received benefits from Manufacturers, and was accordingly liable to pay the assessment.

The Assessment Court struck a number of Digby’s defenses as being unmeritorious as a matter of law. These included Dig-by’s defense based on alleged improprieties of the Colorado Commissioner of Insurance and Manufacturers, the allegedly unreasonable manner in which the assessment had been levied and computed, the alleged exclusive liability of Digby’s truckers, and the alleged lack of a power of attorney signed by Digby. The Assessment Court entered summary judgment against Digby on the 1975 insurance policy in the amount of $61,044, this amount being equal to the premiums paid on the 1975 insurance policy-

As to the 1974 insurance policy, which was not located in Digby’s files, four days of trial ensued, after which the Assessment Court granted the motion for directed verdict in favor of the receiver. The Assessment Court again found that the facts were undisputed, that Manufacturers had issued the policy to Digby in 1974, that Digby had paid premiums to and had received benefits from Manufacturers, and that Digby was liable to pay the assessment. Judgment was thus entered on the 1974 policy in the amount of $97,620, reflecting the premiums paid under the 1974 policy. Digby later filed a motion in the Receivership Court for reconsideration of its motion to intervene, and this motion was denied.

I. THE MOTION TO INTERVENE

Digby argues that the Receivership Court erred in denying its motion to intervene for the purpose of challenging the reasonableness of the assessment. Digby asserts that “the crucial issue” which needs to be litigated is whether “the assessment asked for by the receiver [is] reasonable in relation to [Manufacturers’] liabilities?” We disagree with Digby’s arguments for several reasons.

Digby is both a contingent creditor of Manufacturers, to the extent that it may have an insurance claim, and a contingent debtor, to the extent that it may be liable to pay the assessment.

“To the extent of the contingent liability provided for in the contract each member became an insurer as well as an insured. This principle of mutuality, of bilateral contractual obligations, forms the solid core of [interinsurance contracts]. The members in effect enter into mutual covenants to indemnify each other against loss, and they contract through and with the company.”

Aronoff v. Pioneer Mutual Compensation Co., 134 Colo. 395, 304 P.2d 1083 (1956).

Digby’s status as a creditor was adequately represented by the receiver in that the receiver had obtained the approval of the Receivership Court to levy an assessment, and had thereby increased Manufacturers’ assets. The receiver is regarded as the assessee’s representative in the Receivership Court proceedings.

“[T]he order levying the assessment is made conclusive as to all matters relating to the amount and propriety thereof, and the necessity therefor; that it is thus conclusive, although the stockholder may not have been a party to the suit in which it was made or notified that an assess *253 ment was contemplated, as the order is not in the nature of a personal judgment against him and he must be deemed, by virtue of his relation to the corporation and the obligation assumed with respect to its debts, to be represented by it in the proceeding .... ”

Chandler v. Peketz, 297 U.S. 609, 56 S.Ct. 602, 80 L.Ed. 881 (1936). The adequacy of the receiver’s representation bars the right to intervene. C.R.C.P. 24(a)(2).

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Bluebook (online)
685 P.2d 249, 1984 Colo. App. LEXIS 1089, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/benham-v-manufacturers-wholesalers-indemnity-exchange-coloctapp-1984.