City of Sterling Heights v. United National Insurance Comp

319 F. App'x 357
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
DecidedMarch 31, 2009
Docket08-1032, 08-1069
StatusUnpublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 319 F. App'x 357 (City of Sterling Heights v. United National Insurance Comp) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
City of Sterling Heights v. United National Insurance Comp, 319 F. App'x 357 (6th Cir. 2009).

Opinion

PER CURIAM.

This case involves a long-running (six years and counting) insurance-coverage dispute between the City of Sterling Heights, Michigan, and one of its insurance carriers, United National Insurance. The case arises out of lawsuits filed by Hillside Productions against the City based on alleged misconduct by city officials, and the question at hand primarily concerns United’s liability for a portion of a settlement of the lawsuit between the City and Hillside. We affirm in part, reverse in part and remand for additional proceedings.

I.

In 1999, Hillside obtained a lease for a portion of Freedom Hill Park, with the goal of developing an entertainment venue at an amphitheater located in the park. The City initially encouraged Hillside’s development of Freedom Hill, telling Hillside that it would exempt the company from several site-permit requirements. When Hillside refused the City’s demands to pay for police and other services, however, the City changed course, requiring Hillside to apply for a special-approved-land-use permit (SALU). Hillside complied, and the City approved the SALU in February 2001.

Relations between Hillside and the City worsened after this incident. Beginning in April 2001, City officials cited Hillside for building-permit, noise and other violations. In August 2001, after receiving complaints from area residents, the City determined that Freedom Hill was a nuisance based on its violations of noise and other ordinances. At roughly the same time, the City Manager, Steve Duchane, allegedly began to hinder Hillside’s operations in several ways, issuing citations, sending squads of police to concerts to harass patrons and staff, refusing to issue building permits and alcohol licenses and interfering with a possible construction deal that may have been worth $200 million.

The state-court lawsuit. Hillside challenged the City’s actions in a state-court lawsuit. In addition to seeking declaratory and injunctive relief on the ground that the SALU exempted Hillside from the City’s restrictions, Hillside sought $14 million in damages — the value of its investment in the facility up to that point. Hillside (1) alleged that the City’s actions deprived it of the benefit of the SALU, violating its due-process and contract rights, and (2) brought business-libel and slander claims against the City and Du-chane based on a number of disparaging statements Duchane made to the press and others in 2001.

The federal-court lawsuit. While the state-court lawsuit moved along, Hillside filed a second suit against the City and Duchane, this one in federal court. Based on essentially the same facts as the state-court suit, Hillside claimed that the City violated its due-process and equal-protection rights by depriving it of the benefit of the SALU and selectively enforcing its ordinances.

The City responded by revoking Hillside’s SALU based on a series of alleged violations of municipal ordinances. The federal court ordered the City to restore the SALU and to refrain from interfering with it or Hillside anymore. In October 2003, the court granted partial summary judgment for Hillside as to liability, finding that the City had violated Hillside’s procedural and substantive due-process *360 rights but that a jury question remained on the equal-protection claim.

Facing litigation in two different courthouses, the City turned to its insurers for help. Between 1999 and 2003, the relevant times of these allegations, the City held insurance policies from three companies: United National, General Star Indemnity and Specialty National. General Star provided city-and-officials coverage from September 2000 to September 2002. Specialty National provided public-entity commercial-general-liability coverage and public-officials coverage from September 2002 to September 2003. And United provided $20 million of occurrence-based comprehensive general-liability coverage from September 1999 to September 2002.

The federal-court coverage dispute. By July 2003, none of the insurers was willing to participate in the lawsuits or commit to indemnifying the City’s losses, prompting the City to file this coverage lawsuit in federal court. Alleging breach of the insurance contracts, the complaint sought a declaratory judgment clarifying each insurer’s obligations.

The court ruled that United (unlike the other two insurers) did not have a duty to defend the City in the Hillside lawsuits but owed a duty only to indemnify the City’s losses. The court also concluded that aside from the defamation claims — which United conceded were covered by its policy — none of Hillside’s claims fell within United’s coverage.

The City, meanwhile, was in the midst of negotiating a settlement with Hillside. Though invited along with the other insurers to take part in the negotiations, United declined to participate. The City pressed ahead on its own and reached a comprehensive settlement agreement with Hillside in March 2004. The settlement resolved all of Hillside’s pending claims in the state and federal suits in exchange for $31 million and other in-kind benefits. The agreement said nothing about how the settlement should be allocated among the state and federal claims. The City funded the settlement primarily by issuing $25 million in judgment bonds.

After finalizing the settlement, the City amended its complaint to add a claim against all three insurers for breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing in handling the settlement. In January 2006, the district court, standing by its prior ruling, held that the United policy covered Hillside’s defamation claims but not the other state or federal claims.

In June 2006, the City settled its coverage claims with General Star and Specialty National. General Star agreed to pay $10.25 million, and Specialty National agreed to pay $8.5 million. The coverage lawsuit against United continued, however. In attempting to determine the portion of the settlement attributable to the defamation claims, the court applied a “time on the risk” formula, finding United liable for one third of the $31 million settlement, or $10.33 million. All told, the court placed United on the hook for $14.6 million, which included not just the liability loss but also the defense costs, consequential damages and prejudgment interest.

II.

United challenges the district court’s method of calculating United’s share of the $31 million settlement between the City and Hillside. Although United’s policies covered only the defamation claims, the settlement encompassed all of Hillside’s claims against the City, including several constitutional and contract claims. Yet because the $31 million settlement did not divide up liability for the claims, it fell to the district court to allocate part of the settlement to United.

*361 The court rejected both parties’ all-or-nothing approaches to the problem. It did not buy the City’s argument that United was liable for all of the $31 million (really $12.25 million given the other two insurers’ settlement with the City). United’s policy, it is true, required United to indemnify the City for “all sums which the [City] is legally obligated to pay” due to a judgment or settlement. JA 638. But that clause applies only to covered claims, according to Michigan law, which all agree governs this case.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
319 F. App'x 357, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/city-of-sterling-heights-v-united-national-insurance-comp-ca6-2009.