Equitable General Insurance Co. v. Courtesy Pontiac, Inc.

724 S.W.2d 856, 1986 Tex. App. LEXIS 9141
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedDecember 19, 1986
DocketNo. 12-85-0189-CV
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 724 S.W.2d 856 (Equitable General Insurance Co. v. Courtesy Pontiac, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Equitable General Insurance Co. v. Courtesy Pontiac, Inc., 724 S.W.2d 856, 1986 Tex. App. LEXIS 9141 (Tex. Ct. App. 1986).

Opinion

COLLEY, Justice.

Courtesy Pontiac, Inc. (Courtesy), plaintiff/appellee, sued Equitable General Insurance Company and Houston General Insurance Company, defendants/appellants (hereafter referred to as Houston General), on an excess limits (umbrella) liability policy to recover monies paid by Courtesy to a third party in settlement of a products liability suit.1 The trial judge signed and rendered a judgment for Courtesy against Houston General in the sum of $100,000, plus attorney’s fees and interest. We affirm the judgment.

The record reveals that in February 1976, Mary Ann Caruth Reece purchased a 1974 Volkswagen from Tyler Lincoln-Mercury, Inc. On May 11, 1976, the Volkswagen overturned several times and Reece sustained serious injuries in the incident. She sued Tyler Lincoln Mercury and Courtesy on theories of strict liability, alleging a defect in the Volkswagen, and negligence. At the time of the incident, Courtesy was the insured under a garage liability policy issued by Liberty Mutual Insurance Company. The policy provided bodily injury liability coverage with liability limits of $100,000 for each person and $300,000 for each occurrence. The Reece suit was settled for $200,000. Liberty Mutual paid its limits of $100,000 and Courtesy paid the remaining $100,000.

Courtesy filed this suit against Houston General, Liberty Mutual, James C. Fortner, and the Wilhite Insurance Agency, alleging that Houston General breached the umbrella insurance contract, and that Houston General was guilty of violations of the Deceptive Trade Practices-Consumer Protection Act and article 21.21 of the Texas Insurance Code. Courtesy alleged a negligence action against Fortner and Wilhite, and a negligence and deceptive trade practices action against Liberty Mutual. Following a bench trial, judgment was rendered in favor of Courtesy against Houston General for $100,000, plus prejudgment and postjudgment interest and attorney’s fees. A take-nothing judgment was rendered against Courtesy on its actions against Fortner and Liberty Mutual. Apparently, an interlocutory default judgment was entered in Courtesy’s favor against Wilhite.2 The interlocutory judgment was made final under the terms of the final judgment. No complaint is made in this court by any party in respect to the take-nothing judgments and the judgment against Wilhite, and thus we affirm those judgments also.

Houston General assigns four points of error. We first address the fourth point by which Houston General contends that the trial court erred in holding that the eventual deletion of Courtesy as a named insured in the umbrella policy “was ineffective to relieve Houston General from liability to Courtesy for the Reece accident.” It is undisputed that the umbrella policy was issued effective March 23, 1976. It is also undisputed that the policy was delivered to Courtesy’s insurance agent Fortner in May 1976 and was delivered by him to Lamar T. Loe, vice president of Courtesy in Vicksburg, Mississippi, in August 1976.

Loe testified that he told Fortner in a telephone conversation “that we [Courtesy] had gotten coverage, additional umbrella coverage with Liberty Mutual and to cancel the umbrella coverage [with Houston General] for Courtesy.” Loe could not fix the date on which the conversation took place. Loe denied that he “demanded” that Fort-[858]*858ner delete the coverage from “inception.” He further testified emphatically that he did not tell Fortner in March or April 1976 that Fortner was to delete Courtesy’s coverage in the Houston General umbrella policy. Fortner on cross-examination testified in effect that he had submitted Courtesy’s application for the umbrella policy and received the policy3 in May 1976. According to Fortner’s testimony, when he personally delivered the policy to Loe in Vicksburg, Loe reminded him of an earlier conversation, the date of which is uncertain, wherein Loe advised him that he was not to concern himself with insurance coverage for Courtesy and asked him to cancel the policy coverage “back to March 1976.” Fortner’s testimony reveals that he was uncertain about the date on which Loe instructed him to delete Courtesy’s coverage under the Houston General umbrella policy.

Carl Westcott, president of Courtesy, testified that he talked to Bill Bowers, a representative of Liberty Mutual, about placing all of Courtesy’s insurance coverage with that company, including umbrella coverage. Westcott related a conversation with Bowers in Tyler which occurred in February 1976 in which Bowers quoted the premium cost of Liberty Mutual’s program of insurance for all coverage except the umbrella coverage. Westcott stated that he got a quote from Liberty Mutual on the cost of the umbrella policy in a letter dated July 27, 1976. Loe denied that he instructed Fortner to delete Courtesy’s umbrella coverage with Houston General effective March 23, 1976. Based on this conflicting testimony, the trial judge found as a fact4 that Loe did not direct Fortner to secure retroactive cancellation of Courtesy’s umbrella coverage with Houston General. That finding is unchallenged here. In spite of this unchallenged finding, Houston General argues that Courtesy is bound by Fort-ner’s action in requesting and receiving retroactive deletion from Houston General since Fortner was acting as Courtesy’s agent.

Houston General contends, assuming Fortner’s request for retroactive cancellation of the coverage was made after May 11, 1976, the date of the Reece incident, it nevertheless effected a mutual cancellation of the coverage to inception although the policy provisions were not followed.5 In support of these arguments, Houston General refers us to dictum found in Phoenix Ins. Co. v. American Trust & Savings Bank, 248 S.W. 819, 821 (Tex.Civ.App.—El Paso 1923, writ ref’d), reading, “We have no doubt but that an assured ... may ... appoint an agent with the authority to do for him whatever he could do for himself in securing insurance, accepting notice, cancelling and surrendering a policy of insurance_” (Citations omitted.) The Phoenix court cites, inter alia, as its source of the dictum, Dalton v. Norwich Union Ins. Soc., 213 S.W. 230 (Tex. Comm’n App.1919, judgmt adopted), and East Texas Fire Ins. Co. v. Blum, 76 Tex. 653, 13 S.W. 572 (1890). Neither Dalton nor Blum supports the broad dictum in Phoenix or Houston General’s arguments. To the contrary, Dalton is inapplicable, and both Phoenix and Blum stand with Shatter v. Commercial Standard Ins. Co., 158 Tex. 143, 309 S.W.2d 59, 64-65 (1958), for the proposition that simply because an insurance agent is authorized to secure insurance for another, the agent is not authorized to “receive notice of cancellation or ... to [agree] to a proposed cancellation of the policy,” unless and “until he has secured other effective coverage.” Shaller, 309 S.W.2d at 64, 65. (Citations omitted.) Fortner was authorized to effect cancellation of Courtesy’s umbrella coverage with Houston General, but not retroactive cancellation to the policy’s inception date. The trial court’s findings of fact6 that Houston General did not cancel the umbrella cover[859]*859age until December 1976 are unchallenged, as is finding number 29. Hence these findings are binding on this Court. Whitten v. Alling & Cory Co.,

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Bluebook (online)
724 S.W.2d 856, 1986 Tex. App. LEXIS 9141, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/equitable-general-insurance-co-v-courtesy-pontiac-inc-texapp-1986.