Causey v. Southland Nat'l Ins. Corp.

CourtCourt of Appeals of North Carolina
DecidedMarch 5, 2024
Docket23-725
StatusPublished

This text of Causey v. Southland Nat'l Ins. Corp. (Causey v. Southland Nat'l Ins. Corp.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of North Carolina primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Causey v. Southland Nat'l Ins. Corp., (N.C. Ct. App. 2024).

Opinion

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF NORTH CAROLINA

No. COA23-725

Filed 5 March 2024

Wake County, No. 19CVS8664

MIKE CAUSEY, COMMISSIONER OF INSURANCE OF NORTH CAROLINA, Petitioner,

v.

SOUTHLAND NATIONAL INSURANCE CORPORATION, SOUTHLAND NATIONAL REINSURANCE CORPORATION, BANKERS LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY, COLORADO BANKERS LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY, North Carolina Domiciled Insurance Companies, Respondents.

Appeal by intervenor-appellant from orders entered 30 December 2022 by

Judge A. Graham Shirley II in Wake County Superior Court. Heard in the Court of

Appeals 23 January 2024.

Attorney General Joshua H. Stein, by Deputy Solicitor General James W. Doggett, Special Deputy Attorney General Daniel S. Johnson, and Special Deputy Attorney General M. Denise Stanford, for petitioner-appellee.

Williams Mullen, by Wes J. Camden, Caitlin M. Poe, and Lauren E. Fussell, for respondents-appellees.

Fox Rothschild LLP, by Matthew Nis Leerberg and Condon Tobin Sladek Thornton Nerenberg PLLC, by Aaron Z. Tobin, for intervenor-appellant.

FLOOD, Judge.

Intervenor-Appellant GBIG Holdings, LLC (“GBIG”) appeals from two orders

entered 30 December 2022—an order denying GBIG’s motion for a continuance to

allow discovery and an order of liquidation against Bankers Life Insurance Company CAUSEY V. SOUTHLAND NAT’L INS. CORP.

Opinion of the Court

(“BLIC”) and Colorado Bankers Life Insurance Company (“CBLIC”). Our review of

the Record reveals that GBIG should not have been allowed to intervene;

nevertheless, the trial court did not err in denying GBIG’s motion to continue and

ordering BLIC and CBLIC into liquidation. Accordingly, we modify the trial court’s

orders to clarify GBIG is not a proper party and affirm.

I. Facts and Procedural Background

The case before us is one of many cases stemming from the insolvency of

several insurance companies owned by Greg Lindberg (“Lindberg”). Here, we provide

only the facts pertinent to this appeal and those relevant facts that have not

previously been addressed by this Court in Southland National Insurance

Corporation v. Lindberg, 289 N.C. App. 378, 889 S.E.2d 512 (2023).

Respondents-Appellees Southland National Insurance Corporation

(“Southland”), BLIC, and CBLIC are licensed domestic insurers, owned by GBIG.

GBIG is wholly owned by Lindberg. On 18 October 2018, Southland, BLIC, and

CBLIC consented to be placed under administrative supervision, following concerns

from Petitioner-Appellee Commissioner of Insurance Mike Causey (“Causey”), that

the companies would be financially unable to meet outstanding obligations to their

policyholders. During the period of administrative supervision, Causey determined

that under the current investment structure, Southland, BLIC, and CBLIC lacked

the liquidity to pay their policyholders and ultimately placed the companies into

rehabilitation.

-2- CAUSEY V. SOUTHLAND NAT’L INS. CORP.

The Southland Liquidation Hearing

After over two years of supervising Southland, on 21 March 2021, Causey filed

a petition for liquidation due to Southland’s insolvency. On 14 April 2021, GBIG filed

an objection to the petition for liquidation as well as a motion for continuance to allow

for discovery, prompting Causey to file a response in which he asserted GBIG lacked

standing under N.C. Gen. Stat. § 58-30-95 (2021) to bring an objection to the petition.

On 16 April 2021, the petition for liquidation of Southland was heard and the trial

court, in granting GBIG’s motion to intervene, stated, “I do believe [GBIG] ha[s] the

right to contest [the petition].” Following the hearing, an order (the “Southland

Order”) was entered, in which the trial court found:

10. [Causey] contends that GBIG lacks standing to defend against this petition because [he] seeks a liquidation order based solely on 58-30-11—which does not mention any right to defend. However, the immediately preceding statute, Section 58-30-95, explicitly requires the [c]ourt to “permit the directors of the insurer to take such action as are reasonably necessary to defend against the petition [for liquidation],” at least for petitions arising under that section. The [c]ourt finds it unnecessary to decide whether there is a statutory right to defend against a petition arising solely under 58-30-100, because the [c]ourt will exercise its “broad supervisory power” to allow GBIG to contest whether [Southland] is insolvent under the statutory definition of insolvency[.]

11. [Causey] contends that only “the directors of the insurer,” may defend against the petition under Section 58- 30-95(a) and therefore, GBIG does not have standing to defend against this petition. GBIG, in contrast, contends that under these circumstances, where [Southland] no longer has active directors, the statutory right of defense

-3- CAUSEY V. SOUTHLAND NAT’L INS. CORP.

vests in GBIG as [Southland’s] sole shareholder and owner. [Causey] notes that as Rehabilitator he possesses the statutory power to exercise and enforce all rights, remedies, and powers of the sole shareholder, under Section 58-30-85 (a)(19). Again, the [c]ourt finds it unnecessary to decide whether GBIG may defend against the petition as a matter of statutory right, because the [c]ourt will instead invoke its broad supervisory power to allow GBIG to contest whether [Southland] is insolvent under the statutory definition of insolvency.

Ultimately, as to the Southland liquidation petition, the trial court concluded

that GBIG would be allowed to “contest whether [Southland] [was] insolvent under

the statutory definition of insolvency” and may conduct limited prehearing discovery,

but neglected to rule specifically on whether GBIG had standing to intervene.

On 10 June 2021, Southland, Causey, and GBIG jointly motioned to stay the

liquidation proceedings, which the trial court granted, allowing the parties to

reschedule for a later date.

A few months later, on 3 November 2021, GBIG filed a motion seeking

authority from the trial court to propose a plan of rehabilitation for Southland, BLIC,

and CBLIC. In its order denying GBIG’s motion, the trial court found:

Without specifically ruling on the standing issue, this [c]ourt noted that N.C. Gen. Stat. § 58-30-95 permits directors of the insurer to take action to defend against a liquidation petition, and therefore found it unnecessary to determine whether GBIG [ ] had standing to file an objection. Instead this [c]ourt exercised “broad supervisory power” to allow GBIG [ ] to contest whether [Southland] is insolvent as defined by statute for the purpose of hearing on that specific determination.

-4- CAUSEY V. SOUTHLAND NAT’L INS. CORP.

The BLIC and CBLIC Liquidation Hearing

Nearly one year later, on 1 November 2022, Causey filed a verified petition for

an order of liquidation against BLIC and CBLIC, asserting that the companies were

insolvent within the meaning of Chapter 58 of the North Carolina General Statutes.

At the time of filing, BLIC’s assets of $253,163,012 did not exceed its liabilities of

$345,062,743, and CBLIC’s assets of $1,369,052,180 did not exceed its liabilities of

$2,508,953,520. Two weeks later, GBIG filed an objection to the petition for

liquidation as well as a motion for continuance to allow discovery, asserting that, as

the “parent company” of both BLIC and CBLIC, it should be allowed to present

evidence showing neither company was insolvent.

On 21 November 2022, a hearing on GBIG’s motion for a continuance to allow

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Causey v. Southland Nat'l Ins. Corp., Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/causey-v-southland-natl-ins-corp-ncctapp-2024.