Church Mutual Insurance Co. v. Ma'Afu

657 F. App'x 747
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit
DecidedJuly 21, 2016
DocketNo. 15-4126
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 657 F. App'x 747 (Church Mutual Insurance Co. v. Ma'Afu) 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
Church Mutual Insurance Co. v. Ma'Afu, 657 F. App'x 747 (10th Cir. 2016).

Opinion

ORDER AND JUDGMENT1

Robert E. Bacharach, Circuit Judge

This appeal concerns an insurer’s duty to defend. Church Mutual Insurance Company issued two policies that collectively insure the Tongan United Methodist Church, the church’s trustees, and the Rocky Mountain Conference for the United Methodist Church. One policy insured the Tongan United Methodist Church and its trustees (the Church policy); the other policy insured the Rocky Mountain Conference, the Tongan United Methodist Church, and the church’s trustees (the Conference policy). When the insureds are sued for covered losses, the policies required Church Mutual to provide a defense in the absence of an exclusion.

A trustee for the Tongan United Methodist Church (Mr. Etimani Ma’Afu) was sued in Utah state court, and the Conference intervened to assert its own claims. Mr. Ma’Afu and the Conference asked Church Mutual to provide a defense and reimburse defense costs. Church Mutual refused and sued in federal court for declaratory relief to establish the extent of its obligations under the insurance policies.

The district court granted partial summary judgment to the Conference and Mr. Ma’Afu, concluding that Church Mutual must defend Mr. Ma’Afu and reimburse the Conference for its defense costs. Church Mutual appeals, and we affirm in part and reverse in part.

1. Background

To understand Church Mutual’s appellate arguments, we begin with the dispute over control of the church and the resulting disagreement over the extent of Church Mutual’s duty to defend.

A. The Battle for Control of the Tongan United Methodist Church

This litigation grew out of an internal disagreement within the congregation of the Tongan United Methodist Church. In 2012, the church’s congregation voted to elect a new board of directors. The new board of directors adopted two significant changes: (1) renaming the church “The Salt Lake City Laumalie Ma’oni’oni Free Wesleyan Church of Tonga,” eliminating any reference to the United Methodist Church,2 and (2) amending the church’s articles of incorporation to eliminate any mention of The Book of Discipline, the governing instrument for the United [751]*751Methodist Church.3 The “old” board of directors, led by Mr. Ma’Afu and supported by the Rocky Mountain Conference, regarded these changes as invalid.

The Free Wesleyans insisted that the changes were valid and sued Mr. Ma’Afu in Utah state court. The Conference intervened as a defendant and counterclaimant in the Free Wesleyans’ suit. The Conference also filed its own suit against the Free Wesleyans, and the state court consolidated the two suits.

B. The Insurance Litigation, the Issues, and Our Conclusions

In connection with the consolidated state-court suit, Mr. Ma’Afu and the Conference demanded that Church Mutual provide a defense under the two insurance policies; Church Mutual refused, arguing that the insurance policies did not cover this suit.

Church Mutual then sued Mr. Ma’Afu and the Conference in federal court, seeking a declaratory judgment stating that Church Mutual had no duty to defend in the state-court suit. Mr. Ma’Afu and the Conference filed two counterclaims against Church Mutual, seeking

1. a declaratory judgment stating that Church Mutual had a duty to defend in the state-court suit and
2. recovery for Church Mutual’s bad faith in refusing to provide a defense.

Both sides sought summary judgment. The district court denied Church Mutual’s summary judgment motion and granted Mr. Ma’Afu and the Conference’s motion for partial summary judgment.4 In granting partial summary judgment, the court ordered Church Mutual to defend Mr. Ma’Afu and to pay the Conference’s legal fees. The court declined to address the argument that Church Mutual’s duty to defend would be capped by a $25,000 endorsement limit on lawsuits between affiliated entities.

Church Mutual appealed.5 We conclude that the district court correctly held that both the Conference policy and the Church policy require Church Mutual to defend Mr. Ma’Afu in the state-court- suit. But the Conference was not entitled to partial summary judgment on its claims involving Church Mutual’s duty to reimburse the Conference for defense expenses under the Conference policy. We also conclude that the district court should have addressed the Conference policy’s $25,000 endorse[752]*752ment limit and held that a genuine dispute of material fact existed over the applicability of the endorsement, potentially limiting Church Mutual’s liability and precluding summary judgment on this issue.

II. Appellate Jurisdiction

Mr. Ma’Afu and the Rocky Mountain Conference move to dismiss the appeal for lack of appellate jurisdiction. We deny this motion6 but conclude that we lack pendent appellate jurisdiction over the ruling on the bad-faith claim.

A. The Substance of the District Court’s Order

Interlocutory orders, such as the district court’s grant of partial summary judgment, are ordinarily not appealable until the district court issues a final order. E.g., Hutchinson v. Pfeil, 105 F.3d 566, 568-69 (10th Cir. 1997). But a grant of an injunction is ordinarily immediately ap-pealable regardless of whether the district court has issued a final order. 28 U.S.C. § 1292(a)(1).

The district court deemed its ruling an order granting partial summary judgment, not an injunction. Notwithstanding this label, we examine the order to determine whether it was substantively an injunction. See Westar Energy, Inc. v. Lake, 552 F.3d 1215, 1222 (10th Cir. 2009) (stating that in determining whether an order constitutes an injunction under § 1292(a)(1), the court looks to the substance of the order rather than its form).

To determine whether the order constituted an injunction, we start with the definition of an injunction. An injunction is an equitable decree that compels obedience and is enforceable by contempt. New Mexico v. Trujillo, 813 F.3d 1308, 1318 (10th Cir. 2016). The district court’s ruling fit this definition because it compelled Church Mutual to (1) provide a defense to Mr. Ma’Afu in the state-court litigation and (2) reimburse the Conference for its legal expenses. And the district court could enforce its ruling through a contempt citation. See Gon v. First State Ins. Co., 871 F.2d 863, 866 (9th Cir. 1989) (determining that an order directing an insurer to pay defense expenses was enforceable by contempt). As a result, the order served in substance as an injunction. See Westar Energy, 552 F.3d at 1224 (classifying an order directing a party to “immediately pay a specific sum of money ... and pay future amounts as they come due” as injunctive relief).7

[753]*753B.

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657 F. App'x 747, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/church-mutual-insurance-co-v-maafu-ca10-2016.