Berendes v. Geico Casualty Company

526 F. App'x 864
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit
DecidedMay 16, 2013
Docket12-4136
StatusUnpublished

This text of 526 F. App'x 864 (Berendes v. Geico Casualty Company) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Berendes v. Geico Casualty Company, 526 F. App'x 864 (10th Cir. 2013).

Opinion

ORDER AND JUDGMENT *

MARY BECK BRISCOE, Chief Judge.

Plaintiff Tara Berendes appeals from the district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of defendant GEICO Casualty Company on her claim for breach of the duty of good faith and fair dealing. Exercising jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291, we affirm.

I

Factual background,

On June 1, 2004, Tara Berendes (Ber-endes) and her husband Josh were driving southbound on Interstate 15 (1-15) in Salt Lake County, Utah, en route from their honeymoon in California to their home in Colorado. On that same date, Utah resident Thad Goodman was driving northbound on 1-15 in Salt Lake County. Goodman, traveling at an excessive rate of speed through a construction zone, lost control of his vehicle, rolled through the median, became airborne, and collided with Berendes’s southbound vehicle. Goodman was killed in the accident. Berendes and Josh survived the accident, but both sustained injuries. In particular, Berendes sustained a severe closed-head injury that left her in a coma for three weeks, facial burns, multiple lacerations, a ruptured diaphragm, and a pulmonary contusion.

At the time of the accident, Goodman was a named insured under a policy of automobile liability insurance issued by GEICO Casualty Company (GEICO). The liability limits of that policy were $25,000 per person for bodily injury and $15,000 for property damage.

The day after the accident, June 2, 2004, GEICO assigned adjuster Theresa McCor-mack to handle the claims against the Goodman estate. On June 3, 2004, McCor-mack received a call from an adjuster for Progressive Insurance Company (Progressive), the automobile liability insurer for *866 Berendes. That adjuster provided McCor-mack with basic facts regarding the accident and informed her that Berendes’s father was overseeing things on behalf of Berendes and Josh. That same day, McCormack called Goodman’s brother, who purportedly conceded the accident was Goodman’s fault.

On June 7, 2004, McCormack’s supervisor, Marty Brown, informed McCormack of the relevant GEICO policy limits and suggested that the injuries sustained by Berendes and Josh would likely exhaust, those limits. On June 11, 2004, McCor-mack spoke by phone with Berendes’s father, who informed McCormack that Ber-endes was still in a coma and that her medical bills would likely be significant. On June 17, 2004, McCormack received a copy of the police report regarding the accident. The report concluded, in pertinent part, that Goodman had been driving 75 miles-per-hour in a 55 miles-per-hour construction zone immediately prior to the accident.

On or about June 23, 2004, McCormack spoke with Rich Humpherys, an attorney representing Berendes and Josh. During that conversation, McCormack informed Humpherys that the limits of Goodman’s policy with GEICO were $25,000 per person and that GEICO would tender those policy limits to Berendes and Josh. Hum-pherys asked McCormack to send him a copy of Goodman’s policy with GEICO. Following the conversation, Humpherys faxed a letter to McCormack confirming that he was representing Berendes and Josh. The letter again requested a certified copy of Goodman’s policy and requested written verification of the policy limits.

On that same day, June 23, 2004, Hum-pherys sent a letter to Progressive stating, in pertinent part:

We represent the Berendeses as it relates to a UIM claim and any PIP claim that may arise out of the above accident. We understand that the opposing driver, Thad Goodman ..., had insurance through GEICO with minimum limits of $25,000/$50,000. The adjuster for GEI-CO has orally indicated that it will tender its policy limits though we have not yet received written confirmation.

App., Vol. 1 at 197-198.

On July 1, 2004, Humpherys faxed to McCormack medical records indicating that Berendes remained in a coma, that her brain might not be fully functional, and that she had received a tracheotomy and a feeding tube.

On July 2, 2004, McCormack sent a letter to Humpherys “acknowledging] receipt of [his] letter of representation,” emphasizing that GEICO would need to know “if there [we]re any Liens” from Ber-endes’s medical providers, asking him to “provide [her] with the general information as to the extent of the injuries sustained by [Berendes and Josh] and the names and address of the treating doctors and facilities,” and “enclosing Medical and Wage Authorizations to be signed by [Berendes and Josh] and returned to” her. 1 Id. at 137. During the remainder of July 2004, McCormack took the following actions in the case: submitted information necessary to check for prior insurance fraud claims possibly submitted by Berendes and Josh; logged in the medical information sent by Humpherys; received a bill from the State of Utah for property damage that occurred *867 during the accident; and received a call from Progressive seeking a copy of Goodman’s GEICO policy. On July 30, 2004, McCormack requested from GEICO’s underwriting department a certified copy of Goodman’s policy.

On July 27, 2004, the University of Utah Hospital, where Berendes was taken and treated immediately following the accident, served a signed Notice of Lien in the amount of $226,000.

On August 4, 2004, Humpherys faxed a letter to McCormack complaining that he had not received the following items: a copy of Goodman’s GEICO policy; written verification of the policy limits; and a certification that Goodman had no other automobile insurance. The letter urged McCormack to “treat the claims of [Ber-endes] ... separate and apart from the claims of Josh,” id. at 141, and he demanded on behalf of Berendes that GEICO “tender its full liability limits,” “certify the policy limits,” and “certify that GEICO and the Goodmans had no other applicable liability insurance,” id. at 142. In addition, the letter stated that, without GEICO’s “written tender of its policy limits,” they would not be able to resolve Berendes’s underinsured motorist claims. 2 Id.

On August 12, 2004, while McCormack was on vacation, another GEICO employee mistakenly mailed to Bryan Larson, the attorney representing Goodman’s estate, the certified copy of Goodman’s policy that McCormack had requested from GEICO’s underwriting department. On August 23, 2004, McCormack, after returning from vacation, noted that the certified copy of the policy had been mistakenly sent to Larson. Consequently, McCormack requested another certified copy of the policy from GEICO’s underwriting department. McCormack also called Larson’s office and was told that they would fax the policy limits to Humpherys’ office. Later that day, Larson’s legal assistant faxed to Humpherys a copy of the declarations page from the certified copy of the policy. It appears to be undisputed that the declarations page of the policy included, among other information, the policy number, policy limits, and the automobiles covered under the policy.

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Bluebook (online)
526 F. App'x 864, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/berendes-v-geico-casualty-company-ca10-2013.