Estate of Arroyo v. Infinity Indemnity Insurance Co.

211 So. 3d 240, 2017 Fla. App. LEXIS 456
CourtDistrict Court of Appeal of Florida
DecidedJanuary 18, 2017
Docket15-0194 & 15-0183
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 211 So. 3d 240 (Estate of Arroyo v. Infinity Indemnity Insurance Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court of Appeal of Florida primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Estate of Arroyo v. Infinity Indemnity Insurance Co., 211 So. 3d 240, 2017 Fla. App. LEXIS 456 (Fla. Ct. App. 2017).

Opinions

ROTHENBERG, J.

Delia Reyes (“Reyes”) appeals: (1) the probate court’s order granting Infinity Indemnity Insurance Company’s (“Infinity”) motion to intervene in the probate proceedings in the Estate of Jorge Luis Arroyo, Jr. (“the Estate”); (2) the probate court’s subsequent order finding that the personal representatives of the Estate did not have the authority to settle Reyes’s lawsuit against the Estate by entering into a Coblentz agreement 1; and (3) the circuit court’s final judgment incorporating its order granting summary judgment in favor of Infinity on Reyes’s bad-faith claim against Infinity.

We reverse the probate court’s orders granting Infinity’s motion to intervene and its subsequent determination regarding the authority of the personal representatives to settle Reyes’s lawsuit because Infinity’s alleged interest was not at issue in the probate proceedings at the time Infinity moved to intervene. We also conclude that even if intervention was properly granted, the probate court erred by determining the authority of the personal representatives to settle Reyes’s lawsuit because when Reyes filed the lawsuit against the Estate, and the Estate tendered its defense to Infinity, its insurer, Infinity declined to defend the claim..Thus, the defenses Infinity subsequently raised in the probate court were barred and Infinity was prohibited from raising these defenses as a matter of law. We similarly find that the circuit court erred by considering and then granting Infinity’s motion for summary judgment based on these barred defenses in the bad-faith lawsuit against Infinity. Accordingly, we reverse all three orders on appeal.

BACKGROUND

As the result of a car accident on October 9, 2009, Jorge Luis Arroyo, Jr. (“Arroyo”) died and Reyes suffered severe incapacitating injuries. Arroyo’s parents petitioned the probate court to open the Estate and to act as the Estate’s personal representatives, which the probate court granted in January 2011.

On February 11, 2011, Reyes filed a personal injury negligence lawsuit (“the negligence lawsuit”) in the circuit court against the Estate, but never filed a written claim in the probate court. Although the Estate tendered the defense of the [243]*243negligence claim to Infinity, ■ Infinity declined to defend the claim. In January 2018, the Estate settled the negligence lawsuit by entering into a Coblentz agreement with Reyes, in which Reyes and the Estate agreed to the entry of a consent judgment, Reyes agreed not to execute the judgment against the Estate, and the Estate assigned any rights it had against Infinity to Reyes. After Reyes and the Estate entered into the Coblentz agreement and obtained the consent judgment, Reyes sued Infinity in circuit court pursuant to the assignment of rights provision in the Coblentz agreement, alleging in part that Infinity had demonstrated bad faith by failing to defend the Estate in the negligence lawsuit (“the bad-faith lawsuit”).2

Infinity attacked the bad-faith claim on two fronts. First, Infinity moved for entry of summary judgment in the circuit court’s bad-faith lawsuit, arguing that, because Reyes failed to file a statement of claim in the probate court regarding the negligence lawsuit, she could no longer do so because the negligence lawsuit was barred by the statute of limitations, § 733.702, Fla. Stat. (2011), and the statute of repose, § 733.710, Fla. Stat. (2011), set forth in the probate code. Accordingly, Infinity claimed that: (1) the Estate was immune from Reyes’s negligence suit at the time the personal representatives of the Estate settled the lawsuit; (2) the Coblentz agreement and the subsequent consent judgment were therefore unenforceable against the Estate; (3) the Estate was not exposed to an excess judgment because neither the Coblentz agreement nor the consent judgment were enforceable against the Estate; and (4) in order for Reyes to succeed in its bad-faith claim against Infinity, the Estate would need to be exposed to an excess judgment. Thus, Infinity contended that Reyes’s bad-faith claim against Infinity failed because Reyes, standing as the as-signee of the Estate, could not prove that the Estate was exposed to an excess judgment.

Infinity’s second front for attacking the bad-faith claim was waged in the probate court. Infinity filed a motion for leave to intervene in the Estate proceedings pursuant to Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 1.230 for the purpose of determining whether the Estate’s personal representatives had the authority to settle the negligence lawsuit in the circuit court by entering into the Coblentz agreement. When Infinity moved to intervene, the Estate’s proceedings in probate court were uncontested, with no adversarial motions pending before it and minimal record activity. The probate court granted Infinity’s motion to intervene after concluding that Infinity was an interested party regarding the Coblentz agreement, but limited Infinity’s intervention to the issue of “the applicability of Part VI of Florida Statute Chapter 733 to the Personal Representative’s execution of the Settlement Agreement.” Infinity then filed a motion to determine the personal representatives’ right to enter into the Coblentz agreement (“motion to determine”), and Reyes was also permitted to intervene to oppose this motion.

After allowing Infinity to intervene, the probate court ruled on Infinity’s motion to determine and entered an order finding that section 733.710 of the Florida Statutes protects an estate from any claim filed more than two years after the death of the decedent, and that Reyes failed to file a claim against the Estate within two years [244]*244of Arroyo’s death. Accordingly, the probate court concluded that the personal representatives did not have the authority to enter into the Coblentz agreement in'the negligence lawsuit because at the time the personal representatives entered into the Coblentz agreement, the Estate enjoyed absolute, immunity from Reyes’s claim, and thus, the consent judgment was unenforceable against the Estate.3 Reyes has appealed this order and the order granting Infinity’s motion to intervene.

■ Meanwhile, although the original circuit court judge denied Infinity’s motion for summary judgment, a successor circuit court judge reconsidered Infinity’s motion and entered a written order granting Infinity’s motion for summary judgment. The successor circuit court judge concluded that “Reyes’s bad[-]faith claim against Infinity was dependent upon the Estate being liable for the consent judgment in excess of any policy limits,” and thus, “Reyes’s failure to timely file a claim against Arroyo’s Estate relieved the Estate of any liability for the consent judgment.” The circuit court’s order concluded that a bad-faith claim requires the insured to be exposed to an excess judgment,4 and, because the consent judgment could not be the source of an excess judgment against the Estate, Reyes’s bad-faith claim against Infinity failed as a matter of law.

Reyes and Infinity entered into a stipulation pending this appeal voluntarily dismissing the breach of contract claim in the complaint without prejudice. Thereafter, the circuit court entered a final judgment, and Reyes timely appealed. We have consolidated the two appeals from the circuit court and probate court orders.

ANALYSIS

1. The Probate Court’s Orders

Infinity moved to intervene pursuant to Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 1.230.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
211 So. 3d 240, 2017 Fla. App. LEXIS 456, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/estate-of-arroyo-v-infinity-indemnity-insurance-co-fladistctapp-2017.