Mullins v. Parkey

874 S.W.2d 12, 1992 Tenn. App. LEXIS 324
CourtCourt of Appeals of Tennessee
DecidedApril 2, 1992
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 874 S.W.2d 12 (Mullins v. Parkey) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Tennessee primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Mullins v. Parkey, 874 S.W.2d 12, 1992 Tenn. App. LEXIS 324 (Tenn. Ct. App. 1992).

Opinion

OPINION

SANDERS, Presiding Judge (Eastern Section).

The Appellant, Auto-Owners Insurance Company, appeals from a judgment to enforce an agreed settlement between it, its insureds, Defendant James Parkey, and his insurance carrier.

This appeal is the outgrowth of a head-on collision between an automobile driven by Plaintiff-Appellee Tracy Mullins and a pickup truck driven by Defendant James W. Parkey in December, 1988. The automobile driven by Tracy was owned by her father, Plaintiff-Appellee Jerry Mullins. Riding in the car with Tracy were Plaintiffs-Appellees Ruby Mullins and Jem Casey Mullins (all referred to as the Mullinses). Jerri was a minor at the time of the accident. A Mr. Ronnie Lamb was riding as a guest passenger of Mr. Parkey at the time of the accident.

It is alleged in the original complaint that all of the passengers in the Mullins car received severe injuries and Mr. Parkey was operating his vehicle under the influence of an intoxicant. At the time of the accident, the Appellant, Auto-Owners Insurance Company (Auto-Owners), had an automobile liability policy in force on the Mullins automobile affording uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage of $25,000/$50,000 for bodily injury and $10,000 property damage coverage.

For some reason which is not explained in the record, before suits were filed against Mr. Parkey, Auto-Owners paid the full amount of its bodily injury coverage under its policy ($50,000) to the Mullinses and paid Jerry Mullins $5,765 for damages to his automobile.

Subsequently, a suit was filed by the Mul-linses against Mr. Parkey for their personal injuries and property damage to the car. Mr. Charles F. Sterchi, who was counsel for Auto-Owners, participated in these proceedings along with Mr. Floyd W. Rhea, Mullins-es’ counsel, to protect the subrogation rights of Auto-Owners. In the interim, Mr. Lamb, who was the guest passenger riding with Mr. Parkey, filed suit against Mr. Parkey for personal injuries and Mr. Parkey filed a counterclaim against Tracy and Jerry Mullins for personal injuries, alleging it was the negligence of Tracy that caused the accident.

Mr. Parkey was not an uninsured motorist, but had coverage with Economy Fire and Casualty Company of $20,000 and $40,000 bodily injury limits and $10,000 property damage coverage.

In the spring of 1991, the parties and their counsels negotiated a settlement of all claims. A settlement agreement was reached and memorialized in a letter on June 14 from Auto-Owners’ counsel, Mr. Sterchi, to Mr. Rhea, counsel for the Mullinses. By the terms of that settlement, Mr. Parkey’s insurance carrier agreed to pay its full bodily injury liability limit of $40,000. Of that sum $4,000 was to be paid to Mr. Lamb and the remaining $86,000 to be divided equally between the Plaintiffs and Auto-Owners. Additionally, Mr. Parkey’s insurer paid $5,765 under its property damage liability coverage directly to Auto-Owners in satisfaction of its payment in like amount to Jerry Mullins under his uninsured motorist property damage coverage. The payment to Mr. Lamb and the property damage claim were consummated separate and apart from this suit and are not at issue here.

After accepting this settlement, on June 14 Mr. Sterchi cancelled all discovery depositions, including a doctor’s deposition. The suits apparently were not dismissed.

On June 17 the adjuster for Auto-Owners informed its attorney that after the settlement arrangements of June 14 were made, he realized Auto-Owners had paid the claims to Mullinses under the uninsured/underin-sured motorist coverage of the Plaintiffs policy but he had forgotten that fact on Juné 14 [14]*14when the 50/50 split of proceeds was agreed upon. The adjuster would not consummate the settlement agreement to that extent, claiming that, under the subrogation agreement, Auto-Owners had a first right to any recovery up to the limits of its payment of $50,000.

The Mullinses filed a motion with the trial court asking the court to enforce the settlement agreement against Auto-Owners. Upon the hearing, which apparently was conducted upon the record, the letters from Mr. Sterchi to Mr. Rhea, and oral argument, without other evidence, the court entered an order directing the $36,000 be divided equally between Auto-Owners and the Mullinses.

Auto-Owners has appealed, saying the court was in error in awarding half of the proceeds of the settlement to Mullinses. Appellant argues that the settlement was unenforceable because Mullinses gave no consideration for a share of the proceeds.

We cannot agree with Appellant’s insistence that there was no consideration for Mullinses’ promise of compromise. “The compromise of a claim is a sufficient consideration for a promise to pay money.” See Service Stamp v. Ketchen, 10 Tenn.App. 59, 61 (1929). Also see Thurmond v. Whittaker, 1 Tenn.App. Ill (1925). Also, it appears the Mullinses may very well have had more to lose by the compromise settlement than Auto-Owners. It appears from the record that the Mullinses’ medical expenses alone exceeded $125,000. Although Mr. Parkey’s insurance coverage of $40,000 for bodily injury and $10,000 for property damage is obviously insufficient to cover his potential liability, there is nothing in the record to show he is judgment proof. Had the case gone to trial, the probability of Mullinses recovering substantially more than their medical expenses is very real.

The potential benefits to Auto-Owners stemming from the settlement are also very real. By settling the ease, Auto-Owners was saved the expense of defending the Mullinses against Parkey’s counterclaim. The settlement also foreclosed any potential liability of Auto-Owners from a recovery by Parkey against the Mullinses.

Auto-Owners also insists it is entitled to all of the $36,000 under the subrogation provisions of its policy. As pertinent here, the policy provides as follows:

“SUBROGATION. In the event of any payment under this policy, except under Coverages C.l and C.2 of the Insuring Agreements, the Company shall be subrogated to all the insured’s rights of recovery therefor and the insured shall execute all papers required and shall do everything that may be necessary to secure such rights. The insured shall do nothing after loss to prejudice such rights.
“TRUST AGREEMENT. In the event of payment to any person under Coverage D: “(a) the Company shall be entitled to the extent of such payment to the proceeds of any settlement or judgment that may result from the exercise of any rights of recovery of such person against any person or organization legally responsible for the bodily injury because of which such payment is made; “(b) such person shall hold in trust for the benefit of the Company all rights of recovery which he shall have against such other person or organization because of the damages which are the subject of claim made under this policy;
“(c) such person shall do whatever is proper to secure and shall do nothing after loss to prejudice such rights.”

Coverage “D” referred to above is the uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage. In addition to the subrogation provisions in the policy, Tracy and Ruby Mullins, who each received $20,000 of the policy proceeds, executed a similar subrogation agreement to Auto-Owners.

Under the holding of our supreme court in Wimberly v. American Casualty Company of Reading, Pennsylvania,

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

Related

Patton v. Estate of Upchurch
242 S.W.3d 781 (Court of Appeals of Tennessee, 2007)
Beaman Pontiac v. Gill
Court of Appeals of Tennessee, 2000
TN Farmers v. Mattie Bradford
Court of Appeals of Tennessee, 1999
In Re Ollie
207 B.R. 586 (W.D. Tennessee, 1997)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
874 S.W.2d 12, 1992 Tenn. App. LEXIS 324, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/mullins-v-parkey-tennctapp-1992.