Glens Falls Indemnity Co. v. Fredericksen

8 F.R.D. 55, 1947 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1779
CourtDistrict Court, D. Nebraska
DecidedDecember 31, 1947
DocketCiv. No. 105-47
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 8 F.R.D. 55 (Glens Falls Indemnity Co. v. Fredericksen) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. Nebraska primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Glens Falls Indemnity Co. v. Fredericksen, 8 F.R.D. 55, 1947 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1779 (D. Neb. 1947).

Opinion

DELEHANT, District Judge.

The identification of the parties to this action and of certain other persons and [57]*57■corporations, the disclosure of their respective relationships to the events leading up to the proceeding, and the very brief narration of those facts that are yet •unchallenged will promote an understanding of the setting in which the two questions now before the court are laid.

The plaintiff, a New York corporation, ■engaged in the writing of automobile liability insurance in Nebraska, among -other states, on April 11, 1947 issued to Live Stock National Bank, a national banking association, located at Omaha, Nebraska, hereinafter referred to as “the bank”, its contract or policy of insurance where-under it undertook to- pay for the “insured” damages not exceeding $300,000 in respect of each person and a like sum in respect of each accident, imposed by law for personal injury to or death of any person or persons incident to the ownership, maintenance or use of certain designated automobiles. With certain irrelevant exceptions, the policy defined the word “insured”, as including “the named assured and also * * * any person while using an owned * * * automobile and any person * * * legally responsible for the use thereof, provided the actual use of the automobile is with the permission of the named insured.” The policy remained in effect at all times material herein. On May 6, 1947 Mayburn H. Daykin was an employe of the bank. On that date, while he was driving an automobile of the bank within the general coverage of the policy, in which Peter J. Waskel and Herman M. Claussen were riding, a collision occurred between a train of Chicago and Northwestern Railway Company, a corporation, hereafter referred to as “the railway company”, operated by one L. A. Sorby as its engineer. In the collision Daykin, Waskel and Claussen were killed. The several defendants above identified were seasonably appointed as the personal representatives of the estates of their respective intestates. They, the bank Tide 28 U.S.C.A. § 41(16), and Sorby are, and the three decedents at the times of their deaths were, residents and citizens of Nebraska. The railway company is a citizen of a state other than Nebraska.

To recover judgment for damages resulting from the death of Waskel, the defendant Nioma Waskel, as administratrix, instituted, and on the 'filing of this action had pending, in the District Court of Douglas County, Nebraska an obviously non-removable suit against the bank, the defendant Lawrence Fredericksen, Administrator of the estate of Mayburn H. Day-kin, deceased, the railway company and Sorby, in which she alleged generally the bank’s employment of Daykin, his use at the time of the collision of the automobile both (a) in the scope of his employment and in furtherance of the bank’s business, and (b) with the bank’s permission; attributed the collision and Was-kel’s death to the gross negligence of Day-kin, in the premises, and to negligence concurrent therewith of the railway company and Sorby, and prayed for judgment against all of the defendants to her suit.

The defendant, Martha E. Claussen, ad-ministratrix claims to have the right to institute, but at the time of hearing herein had not instituted an action generally of similar character to recover judgment for damages resulting from the death of Claus-sen.

In that situation, the plaintiff, on October 28, 1947 instituted this action for a declaratory judgment under Title 28 U.S. C.A. § 400 against the three defendants designated in the caption of this memorandum. In its complaint it set out the foregoing factual narrative, and further alleged a controversy between Fredericksen, as administrator, and itself over coverage in behalf of Daykin’s estate under the policy, in that Fredericksen claims that, by virtue of its language hereinbefore quoted, the policy inures to the benefit of the Day-kin estate as an additional insured, and that the plaintiff, at its sole cost and expense, is obligated to defend the Daykin estate against suits or claims or both arising out of the collision and to pay any judgment rendered in any such suit against that estate, while the plaintiff wholly denies that claim of coverage and the conclusions resulting therefrom, and, on its part, claims that Daykin’s use of the automobile on the occasion of the collision [58]*58was without the permission or authority of the bank or any of its officers. The complaint then analyzes the possibility and threat of sundry further suits arising or to arise in consequence of the Waskel and Claussen claims. It prays first for a declaratory judgment absolving it from liability as an insurer for the benefit of the Daykin estate, for the defense of suits against that estate, or the payment of judgment's therein, arising out of the collision; secondly, for injunctive relief against the further prosecution of the Waskel suit pending the final determination of this case by this court; thirdly, for injunctive relief, during a like period against the institution of any suit upon the Claussen claim; and for costs.

The plaintiff promptly sought herein a restraining order (really demanding a preliminary injunction) against the prosecution of the Waskel suit and the institution of the anticipated Claussen suit; and, by order to show cause, that issue was set for hearing. Counsel for the several defendants appeared at the hearing and resisted the demand of the plaintiff. Meanwhile, the defendants Waskel and Claussen, as administratrices had filed a motion to dismiss this action, in which the defendant Fredericksen, as administrator, had joined. And that motion was submitted concurrently with the plaintiff’s request for an injunctive order. Counsel have subsequently delivered to the court exhaustive briefs upon both issues; and they are in position for determination.

It will be obvious that the motion to dismiss, though it was tendered as the later of the two questions, is logically entitled to prior determination. If it were well taken, the question of injunctive relief would be dissipated by the imperatively required order of dismissal.

The motion to dismiss is grounded upon the denial of the jurisdiction of this court over the subject matter of the action; and that denial rests principally upon the defendants’ contention that the bank is an indispensable party to the action, and as such must be associated, either in the first instance or through mandatory alignment of parties in accordance with their actual positions, with the plaintiff, thus destroying the diversity of citizenship, which, otherwise, exists.

Whether jurisdiction of subject matter is challenged or not, the court is under the obligation of inquiring into it in every case. That has been done on the present occasion, and, reserving for the moment, the point mentioned in the last previous paragraph, there is no doubt of the court’s jurisdiction.

There is unquestioned diversity of citizenship as between the plaintiff on the one hand and the designated defendants on the other; and, both in the demand of the party plaintiff in the suit pending in the state court, and in the more significant limits of coverage under the policy, Mutual Life Ins. Co. v. Moyle, D.C.S.C., 34 F. Supp. 127; Travelers Insurance Co. v. Young, D.C.N.J., 18 F.Supp. 450; Associated Indemnity Corporation v. Carrow Co., D.C.N.Y., 39 F.Supp. 100; New Century Casualty Co. v. Chase, D.C.W.Va., 39 F.Supp. 768; Commercial Casualty Ins. Co. v. Humphrey, D.C.Tex., 13 F.Supp. 174, the statutory jurisdictional minimum value is in controversy within the meaning of Title 28 U.S.C.A. § 41(1) (c).

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Bluebook (online)
8 F.R.D. 55, 1947 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1779, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/glens-falls-indemnity-co-v-fredericksen-ned-1947.