Glesenkamp v. Nationwide Mutual Insurance

71 F.R.D. 1, 1974 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 9027
CourtDistrict Court, N.D. California
DecidedApril 11, 1974
DocketCiv. No. C-70-1727-CBR
StatusPublished
Cited by26 cases

This text of 71 F.R.D. 1 (Glesenkamp v. Nationwide Mutual Insurance) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, N.D. California primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Glesenkamp v. Nationwide Mutual Insurance, 71 F.R.D. 1, 1974 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 9027 (N.D. Cal. 1974).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM OF OPINION AND ORDER

RENFREW, District Judge.

This case arose out of a dispute as to the extent of coverage afforded under a group travel accident insurance policy issued to plaintiff by defendant Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company on May 27, 1967. On August 14, 1967, plaintiff was injured while boarding a boat. She subsequently filed a claim, explaining:

“The accident occurred while I was attempting to board a motorboat, the Lu-cerne, at Lake Lucerne, Switzerland. When I arrived at the top of the gang plank, I stumbled over an extremely high threshhold [sic], which was unattended, and fell heavily fracturing my left femur.” (Exhibits L-2-3 to Defendant’s Memorandum in Support of Motion for Summary Judgment filed October 30, 1973.)

Defendant denied benefits on the ground that the policy afforded coverage only while she was riding as a passenger on a boat, not while she was in the act of boarding. Plaintiff’s attorney then wrote to defendant with a new version of how the accident had occurred:

[2]*2“Mrs. Glesenkamp was not entering the boat in the sense of boarding it initially. She had arrived on the boat and was in the process of entering the lounge in order to be seated as a passenger prior to the boat’s departure.” (Exhibit S to Defendant’s Memorandum filed October 30, 1973.)

Because of the conflicting statements about where the accident had occurred, defendant continued to deny the claim and asked that the conflict be resolved: After unsuccessful efforts to resolve the conflict to defendant’s satisfaction, plaintiff instituted this lawsuit on August 13, 1970, alleging causes of action based on fraud, breach of contract, and constructive trust. The breach of contract and constructive trust claims were disposed of on March 19, 1971, when this Court granted plaintiff’s motion for summary judgment on the issue of defendant’s liability to her under the policy. Thereafter, on May 4, 1972, this Court denied defendant’s motion to dismiss the remaining fraud claim on the ground that satisfaction of the claims under the contract did not bar further action on the fraud claim since the claims arose out of separate and distinct facts.1

There are now three motions before the Court. Defendant has moved for summary judgment on the ground that .there are no genuine issues of material fact; plaintiff has moved for leave to amend her complaint to allege that defendant breached the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing and that it intentionally inflicted emotional distress when it denied her claim for injuries; and plaintiff has also moved for leave to amend her complaint to add a cause of action for fraud against National Travel Club, Inc., the organization through which plaintiff received her insurance policy-

In the year and a half since the Court’s order denying defendant’s motion to dismiss, plaintiff has failed to establish any facts which would support her fraud claim. Plaintiff claims that defendant’s fraudulent scheme began prior to the issuance of her policy when the defendant changed the definition of “injury” in its travel accident insurance policy. Prior to January, 1967, the policy covered any injury sustained “while riding as a passenger * * * in or on (including boarding and alighting from) any land or water conveyance * * On January 2, 1967, the policy was amended and the “boarding and alighting” language was deleted.2 Plaintiff argues that when defendant issued her insurance policy it intended to rely on the altered language to deny any claims from persons injured in the act of boarding or alighting, in spite of its knowledge that such claims were covered by the amended policy. Defendant’s denial of her claim is said to be further evidence of this fraudulent scheme.

In its motion for summary judgment defendant presents affidavits of three of the persons involved in amending the policy and of five other employees who were involved in processing plaintiff’s claim. These uniformly support defendant’s contention that it acted in good faith both in amending the policy and in handling plaintiff’s claim. Plaintiff, on the other hand, has failed to present any counter affidavits or to depose any of defendant’s employees. She filed a notice of deposition and an overly broad request for production of documents on October 2,1972, covering the eleven employees who were consulted in connection with the amendment to the policy. On December 14, 1972, following the Court’s denial of her motion to compel production of documents, plaintiff stipulated to a continuance of the-date for the depositions until.a “mutually convenient date sometime in the future.” No further action is reflected in the file for almost one year when on September 27, 1973, plaintiff filed a certificate of readiness certifying that all depositions and discovery were completed. Defendant’s motion for summary judgment followed on October 30, 1973. In a tardy effort to find any facts to support her claim, and contrary [3]*3to the representations to the Court contained in the certificate of readiness, plaintiff noticed depositions of the eight persons whose affidavits were attached to the motion for summary judgment and also of five other persons who were involved in the policy amendment. Aside from the burden presented by the number of depositions, they were to be held in Ohio, New York, Florida, and Oregon. This notice was vacated by the Court on December 27, 1973, after a hearing on the motion for summary judgment.

Plaintiff now urges the Court not to grant summary judgment without giving her another chance to depose defendant’s affiants and other persons involved in amending the policy. Plaintiff has known the names of all eleven people involved in amending the policy since June of 1971. (See Answer No. 32, Defendant’s Further Answers to Interrogatories filed June 4, 1971.) Three of the eight affiants are included in this group and the rest are easily identifiable employees of defendant who were involved in handling plaintiff’s claim. Indeed, the names of all but two appeared repeatedly in the extensive correspondence between plaintiff and defendant with respect to her claim. Her failure to depose them until after filing a certificate of readiness and until after a motion for summary judgment was filed was a factor considered by the Court in declining her request for further discovery. See Schneider v. McKesson & Robbins, Incorporated, 254 F.2d 827, 831 (2 Cir. 1958). Although summary procedures should be used sparingly where questions of motive or intent are involved, Poller v. Columbia Broadcasting, 368 U.S. 464, 473, 82 S.Ct. 486, 7 L.Ed.2d 458 (1962), plaintiff’s failure to discover any facts in support of her claim for fraud in a year and a half, especially in light of this Court’s prior warning that “plaintiff may well have a significant problem of proof as to the factual basis underlying her claim of fraud” (Glesenkamp, supra, 344 F.Supp. at 519), convinces the Court that allowing additional discovery would not serve the interests of justice. See First Nat. Bank v. Cities Service, 391 U.S. 253, 296-299, 88 S.Ct. 1575, 20 L.Ed.2d 569 (1968).

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Bluebook (online)
71 F.R.D. 1, 1974 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 9027, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/glesenkamp-v-nationwide-mutual-insurance-cand-1974.