National Casualty Company v. Western World Insuran

Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit·Decided January 15, 2014·No. 12-50652·Unpublished

Opinion

Case: 12-50652 Document: 00512500984 Page: 1 Date Filed: 01/15/2014

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit

FILED No. 12-50652 January 15, 2014

Lyle W. Cayce NATIONAL CASUALTY COMPANY Clerk

Plaintiff - Appellee v.

WESTERN WORLD INSURANCE COMPANY

Defendant - Appellant

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas USDC No. 7:11-CV-91

Before HIGGINBOTHAM, OWEN, and GRAVES, Circuit Judges. PER CURIAM:* National Casualty and Western World both insured an ambulance company that was named in a personal injury lawsuit. In the present case, each party seeks a declaratory judgment holding that the other has the sole duty to indemnify the insured. Additionally, each party seeks to recover the $100,000 it contributed to the settlement of the underlying lawsuit. In ruling on the summary judgment motions filed by both parties, the district court held that the injury in the underlying suit did not result from the use of an auto. The district

* Pursuant to 5TH CIR. R. 47.5, the court has determined that this opinion should not be published and is not precedent except under the limited circumstances set forth in 5TH CIR. R. 47.5.4. Case: 12-50652 Document: 00512500984 Page: 2 Date Filed: 01/15/2014

No. 12-50652

court therefore held that Western World has a duty to indemnify but that National Casualty has no such duty, and granted judgment in favor of National Casualty for $100,000. Because we conclude that the injury did result from the use of an auto, we VACATE the district court’s judgment and REMAND the case for further proceedings. FACTUAL BACKGROUND The following facts are not in dispute. On July 26, 2006, two emergency medical technicians (“EMTs”) employed by Preferred Ambulance were attempting to transport Darline Rigsby from a dialysis center to her home by ambulance. The EMTs placed Rigsby on a rolling gurney and rolled her toward the ambulance outside. When they arrived at the rear of the ambulance, one of the EMTs placed the gurney into “load” position and opened at least one of the ambulance doors. While that EMT had one hand on the gurney and one hand on an ambulance door, and while the wheels of the gurney were still on the ground outside the ambulance, the wheels apparently became caught on something. The gurney tipped over, dropping Rigsby to the ground and fracturing her right shoulder. Because of this injury, Rigsby’s dialysis port was moved from her right arm to her neck. Rigsby died several days later of a myocardial infarction. On November 14, 2007, Rigsby’s daughter Alma Batie filed a wrongful death and survival action against Preferred Ambulance in Texas state court. Batie alleged negligence on the part of Preferred Ambulance and its employees, and alleged that Rigsby’s death was proximately caused by the change in her dialysis port. At the time of the accident, Preferred Ambulance was covered by insurance policies issued by National Casualty and Western World. The National Casualty policy covered “all sums an insured must pay as damages because of ‘bodily injury’ . . . to which this insurance applies, caused by an ‘accident’ and resulting from the ownership, maintenance or use of a covered

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‘auto.’” The National Casualty policy also contained an exclusion for bodily injuries “resulting from the providing or the failure to provide any medical or other professional services.” The Western World policy covered “those sums the insured becomes legally obligated to pay as damages because of any ‘bodily injury” . . . to which this insurance applies caused by a ‘professional incident.’” The Western World policy also contained an exclusion for “bodily injury . . . arising out of the . . . use . . . of any . . . ‘auto.’” Additionally, the Western World policy provided that it would be excess over “any of the other insurance, whether primary, excess, contingent or on any other basis . . . if the loss arises out of the maintenance or use of . . . ‘autos’ . . . to the extent not subject” to the exclusion. PROCEDURAL HISTORY National Casualty sued Preferred Ambulance, Western World, and Batie in federal court, seeking a declaration that it had no duty to defend or indemnify Preferred Ambulance in the underlying state court suit. The district court held that both National Casualty and Western World had a duty to defend the underlying suit, but found the indemnification issue to be unripe for adjudication. Both insurers appealed, and a panel of this court affirmed in a published opinion. See National Cas. Co. v. Western World Ins. Co., 669 F.3d 608 (5th Cir. 2012). The panel explained: The issue here is whether Rigsby’s injury resulted from the “use” of an automobile, as that phrase is used in the National Casualty policy and interpreted under Texas law. The underlying suit alleged that Rigsby was injured “during an attempt to load her into the Preferred Ambulance vehicle.” The complaint does not allege exactly when in the process of loading Rigsby into the ambulance her injury occurred. Since the duty to defend extends to any allegation that could conceivably be covered by the policy, . . . we interpret the allegation in the underlying complaint to mean that Rigsby was injured while she was being placed into the ambulance, which is the interpretation most favorable to coverage.

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National Casualty, 669 F.3d at 613 (footnote omitted). The panel held that under Texas law, an injury relates to the “use” of an automobile if (1) the accident arose out of the inherent nature of the automobile, as such; (2) the accident arose within the natural territorial limits of the automobile and the actual use had not terminated; and (3) the automobile did not merely contribute to cause the condition that produced the injury, but itself produced the injury. Id. (citing Mid-Continent Cas. Co. v. Global Enercom Mgmt., Inc., 323 S.W.3d 151, 154 (Tex. 2010)). The parties did not dispute that the first two conditions were satisfied. Rather, National Casualty argued only that if a person is injured while being loaded into an ambulance, the ambulance itself does not “produce” the injury. The panel relied heavily upon Mid-Century Insurance Co. v. Lindsey, 997 S.W.2d 153 (Tex. 1999), in which a boy tried to enter a locked truck through the cab’s back window and accidentally fired a loaded shotgun in a gun rack over the window, injuring a person in another car. The panel quoted the following passage from Lindsey: [The boy’s] sole purpose was to gain entry into the truck to retrieve his clothing. His conduct did not stray from that purpose. He did not play with the gun, or try to shoot it, or load or unload it, or purposely handle it in any way. His contact with the gun was entirely inadvertent. Although the boy was attempting an unorthodox method of entry, it was not an unexpected or unnatural use of the vehicle, given his size, the fact that the vehicle was locked, and the nature of boys. It was the boy’s efforts to enter the vehicle that directly caused the gun to discharge and Lindsey to become injured . . . . Application of the third Appleman/Couch factor makes this a close case, but we think on balance the . . . truck “produced”—to use the factor’s word—the injury. Certainly, the truck was not merely the situs of activity, unrelated to any use of the truck that resulted in the accident.

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