Pham v. State Farm Automobile Insurance Co.

2013 CO 17, 296 P.3d 1038, 2013 WL 790622, 2013 Colo. LEXIS 179
CourtSupreme Court of Colorado
DecidedMarch 4, 2013
DocketSupreme Court Case No. 10SC504
StatusPublished
Cited by16 cases

This text of 2013 CO 17 (Pham v. State Farm Automobile Insurance Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Colorado primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Pham v. State Farm Automobile Insurance Co., 2013 CO 17, 296 P.3d 1038, 2013 WL 790622, 2013 Colo. LEXIS 179 (Colo. 2013).

Opinions

JUSTICE COATS

delivered the Opinion of the Court.

T1 Steven Pham, representing the estate of the driver of a car involved in a traffic accident, along with the deceased driver's parents and the five passengers in his car at the time, sought review of the court of appeals' judgment in Pham v. State Farm Auto. Ins. Co., No. 09CA0768, 2010 WL 2125361 (Colo.App. May 27, 2010) (not published pursuant to C.A.R. 35(f). The court of appeals affirmed a summary judgment in favor of State Farm on grounds that the plaintiff-petitioners' claims were barred by [1040]*1040the statute of limitations governing underin-sured motorist claims, found at section 13-80-107.5(1)(b), C.R.S. (2012).

T2 Because the plaintiffs failed to file this action or demand arbitration of their under-insured motorist claims within either three years of the accrual of their cause of action or within two years after receiving payment of a settlement or judgment on an underlying bodily injury liability claim that had been preserved as prescribed by the statute, the judgment of the court of appeals is affirmed.

L.

1 3 Along with a number of other lawsuits, this action for underinsured motorist coverage arose from an automobile accident that occurred in December 1995. A vehicle driven by Louis Diep Pham was struck by a vehicle driven by Erwin Guerra, who later admitted fault. Mr. Pham and all five of his passengers were injured in the accident, and Mr. Pham subsequently died from his injuries.

T4 At the time of the accident, Mr. Guerra, the at-fault driver, was covered for bodily injury by his own automobile liability insurance policy, issued by Allstate Insurance Company, with policy limits of $25,000 per person and $50,000 per accident. Louis Diep Pham was driving a vehicle owned by Pham Enterprises and insured by State Farm Automobile Insurance Company, with a policy that provided uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage with limits of $100,000 per person and $300,000 per occurrence. Several of the other passengers had separate policies with State Farm on their own vehicles, which also included underinsured motorist coverage, and two of the passengers had excess underinsured motorist coverage with Liberty Mutual Insurance Company. Finally, Mr. Guerra's employer, the owner of the vehicle he was driving, had a Business Auto policy issued by Hartford Fire Insurance Company, with $1 million in lability coverage.

5 In February 1996, Stephen Pham, the personal representative for the estate, and the five surviving passengers filed six separate lawsuits against various parties, including State Farm, Liberty Mutual, Guerra, Guerra's employer, and the bar that served Guerra before the accident. A month later, State Farm paid $75,000 in underinsured motorist benefits to the estate,1 and still later that year, all six separate lawsuits were consolidated as case no. 96CVT7T65 in the Denver District Court. In May, Guerra and the plaintiffs entered into a Stipulated Confessed Judgment for $1,558,707.78. The plaintiffs accepted $50,000 in lability coverage from Allstate and agreed not to enforce the judgment against Guerra in exchange for Guerra's assignment to them of any claims he might have against Hartford.

16 In August 1998, after Hartford declined to extend coverage to Guerra under the terms of the Business Auto policy, the plaintiffs in the consolidated action filed a lawsuit against Hartford in federal district courts in both Colorado and Virginia, asserting claims for breach of contract, bad faith breach of contract, and willful and wanton breach of contract. Also in 1998, while both the consolidated action and the federal litigation against Hartford were pending, these same plaintiffs, along with the parents of the deceased driver, filed another lawsuit in this jurisdiction against State Farm, seeking un-derinsured motorist coverage. After various motions to dismiss were granted and State Farm's motion for partial summary judgment was both granted and upheld on appeal, the only claim remaining in the 1998 state action was a claim by the estate and parents of the driver against State Farm for underinsured motorist coverage, which was stayed by stipulation of the parties pending disposition of the federal lawsuit against Hartford. In April 2006, following summary judgment in Hartford's favor, the federal lawsuit became final, and the stay of the 1998 state claim for underinsured motorist coverage against State Farm expired by its own terms. Following the failure of the plaintiffs to respond to inquiries or take further action in either case, the 1998 state action against State Farm was dismissed in February 2007 for [1041]*1041failure to prosecute, and the consolidated action in 96CV765 was similarly dismissed in April of the same year.

T7 The plaintiff-petitioners filed the instant lawsuit in March 2008, more than a dozen years after the initial accident and almost two years after their action against Hartford became final, alleging the same claims for relief against State Farm they had advanced in the 1996 and 1998 state actions. Onee again the plaintiffs asserted claims of negligence and loss of consortium against Guerra and claims of breach of contract and bad faith breach of contract for State Farm's failure to pay underinsured motorist benefits. The district court granted State Farm's motion to dismiss the claims against it, concluding that they were barred both by the applicable statute of limitations and by the doctrine of claim preclusion. On direct appeal, the court of appeals affirmed the district court's summary judgment, interpreting the two-year limitations provision of section 13-80-107.5(1)(b) as running from May 1998, the point at which the plaintiffs received payment from Allstate of the settlement of their underlying bodily injury liability claim against Guerra, notwithstanding their pending action to recover additional lability insurance coverage by Hartford. The court of appeals did not address the claim preclusion issue.

1 8 We granted the plaintiffs' petition for a writ of certiorari on the question whether the court of appeals erred in its application of the statute of limitations in section 13-80-107.5(1)(b).

IL.

T 9 An obligation to offer insurance protection against uninsured and underinsured motorists has long been imposed by statute in this jurisdiction. See §§ 10-4-609 and 610, C.R.S. (2012). For almost two decades the legislature has devoted a specific provision in title 18, article 80 of the revised statutes, governing limitations of personal actions, exclusively to actions pertaining to insurance protection against uninsured and underin-sured motorists. See § 13-80-107.5(1), CRS. (2012).2 This statutory limitations [1042]*1042provision is carefully structured as two subsections: one applying specifically to "[aln action or arbitration of an 'uninsured motorist' insurance claim, as defined in sections 104-609 and 610, C.R.S.," see subsection 107.5(1)(a), and the other applying specifically to "[aln action or arbitration of an 'under-insured motorist insurance claim, as defined in section 10-4-609(4), C.R.S.," see subsection 107.5(1)(b).

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Bluebook (online)
2013 CO 17, 296 P.3d 1038, 2013 WL 790622, 2013 Colo. LEXIS 179, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/pham-v-state-farm-automobile-insurance-co-colo-2013.