Pompa v. American Family Mutual Insurance

520 F.3d 1139, 2008 U.S. App. LEXIS 7038, 2008 WL 837050
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit
DecidedMarch 31, 2008
Docket07-1138
StatusPublished
Cited by47 cases

This text of 520 F.3d 1139 (Pompa v. American Family Mutual Insurance) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Pompa v. American Family Mutual Insurance, 520 F.3d 1139, 2008 U.S. App. LEXIS 7038, 2008 WL 837050 (10th Cir. 2008).

Opinion

HARTZ, Circuit Judge.

At issue in this appeal is whether Defendant American Family Mutual Insurance Co. (AFM) had a duty to defend and indemnify its insured, Plaintiff David Cidril-lo Pompa, with respect to a wrongful-death action brought against him. AFM argues that Mr. Pompa’s plea of guilty to negligent homicide for the conduct that gave rise to the wrongful-death action triggers the criminal-conviction exclusion in his homeowner’s insurance policy. Mr. Pom-pa counters that the exclusion applies only to a conviction after trial, that public policy bars the exclusion, and that Colorado law does not permit consideration of his conviction in determining the duty to defend when the wrongful-death complaint makes no mention of it. We reject Mr. Pompa’s arguments and affirm the judgment of the district court that AFM had no duty to defend or indemnify Mr. Pompa.

I. BACKGROUND

In September 2002 Mr. Pompa and Steven Domianus had an altercation that resulted in Domianus’s death. Mr. Pompa pleaded guilty to criminally negligent homicide in May 2003. Domianus’s heirs then filed a wrongful-death action against Mr. Pompa in Colorado state court. Mr. Pompa, a holder of homeowner insurance with AFM, requested it to defend the civil action. AFM, relying on the intentional-injury and criminal-conviction exclusions in Mr. Pompa’s insurance policy, denied that it owed Mr. Pompa a duty of defense or indemnification. A judgment was entered against Mr. Pompa in the amount of $983,609.90, plus costs. Mr. Pompa, unable to satisfy the judgment, then entered into a settlement agreement with Domian-us’s heirs in which he agreed to bring an action against AFM and assign to them the bulk of the proceeds he obtained.

Mr. Pompa filed an action in Colorado state court against AFM, alleging breach of contract, willful breach of contract, and *1142 bad-faith breach of insurance contract. AFM removed the suit to the United States District Court for the District of Colorado under 28 U.S.C. § 1441 and filed a motion for summary judgment, claiming that under the policy’s criminal-conviction exclusion it had no duty to defend Pompa. That exclusion provides that AFM “will not cover bodily injury or property damage arising out of ... violation of any criminal law for which any insured is convicted.” Aplt.App. at 78. The defense provision of the contract states that AFM will provide a defense at its expense “[i]f a suit is brought against any insured for damages because of bodily injury or property damage caused by an occurrence to which this policy applies.” Id. at 76.

Mr. Pompa responded with three arguments why the exclusion did not apply. First, he contended that the criminal-conviction exclusion applies only when the insured has been convicted by a jury. He argued that the phrase “for which any insured is convicted” is ambiguous because it could be referring only to convictions obtained after trial, as opposed to those obtained through guilty pleas, and that any ambiguity had to be resolved in favor of coverage. Second, he contended that applying the exclusion would violate public policy because virtually any act creating liability could be prosecuted as a criminal offense, depending on the exercise of discretion by the prosecutor. Third, he argued that the “complaint rule,” which holds that the determination of an insurer’s duty to defend must be based solely on the allegations of the complaint, precluded the court from considering his conviction for negligent homicide because the wrongful-death complaint did not allege that he had been convicted of any crime. The district court rejected these arguments and granted summary judgment to AFM. Mr. Pompa renews these three arguments on appeal.

II. DISCUSSION

We review de novo the district court’s grant of summary judgment, applying the same legal standard that governs the district court. See Simms v. Oklahoma ex rel. Dep’t of Mental Health & Substance Abuse Servs., 165 F.3d 1321, 1326 (10th Cir.1999). Summary judgment is appropriate when there is no genuine issue of material fact and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. See Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c). The parties agree that there are no factual disputes and that we must apply the substantive law of Colorado. As we shall see, the Colorado Supreme Court has not addressed the specific issues raised in this appeal, so we must predict how that court would rule. See Rash v. J.V. Intermediate, Ltd., 498 F.3d 1201, 1206 (10th Cir.2007) (“Where the state’s highest court has not addressed the issue presented, the federal court must determine what decision the state court would make if faced with the same facts and issue.” (internal quotation marks omitted)).

A. Interpretation of the Criminal-Conviction Exclusion

Mr. Pompa argues that the criminal-conviction exclusion is ambiguous because the word convicted has two meanings. He acknowledges that it could refer to any conviction, whether obtained by guilty plea or after trial, but contends that it could also refer only to convictions after a trial. The district court erred, he asserts, in choosing the more expansive interpretation over his reasonable narrower interpretation. We disagree.

Colorado law requires that ambiguities in an insurance policy be construed in favor of the insured. E.g., State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co. v. Stein, 940 P.2d 384, 390 (Colo.1997). The prerequisite to application of this rule is a determination that *1143 the policy is ambiguous. “Terms used in a contract are ambiguous when they are susceptible to more than one reasonable interpretation.” Hecla Mining Co. v. N.H. Ins. Co., 811 P.2d 1083, 1091 (Colo.1991). The mere fact that the parties disagree on the meaning of a term does not establish ambiguity. See Nat’l Cas. Co. v. Great Sw. Fire Ins. Co., 833 P.2d 741, 746. Nor can a policy term “be read in isolation to create an ambiguity in the policy as a whole where none exists.” Union Ins. Co. v. Houtz, 883 P.2d 1057, 1061 (Colo.1994). In construing a term, a court should ascertain what “a person of ordinary intelligence” would understand the term to mean, Stein, 940 P.2d at 390, giving words their “plain meaning according to common usage.” Allstate Ins. Co. v. Starke, 797 P.2d 14, 18 (Colo.1990).

To support their interpretations of the word conviction,

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520 F.3d 1139, 2008 U.S. App. LEXIS 7038, 2008 WL 837050, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/pompa-v-american-family-mutual-insurance-ca10-2008.