Prime Insurance Co. v. Imperial Fire & Casualty Insurance Co.

151 So. 3d 670, 2014 La.App. 4 Cir. 0323, 2014 La. App. LEXIS 3132, 2014 WL 4923074
CourtLouisiana Court of Appeal
DecidedOctober 1, 2014
DocketNo. 2014-CA-0323
StatusPublished
Cited by21 cases

This text of 151 So. 3d 670 (Prime Insurance Co. v. Imperial Fire & Casualty Insurance Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Louisiana Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Prime Insurance Co. v. Imperial Fire & Casualty Insurance Co., 151 So. 3d 670, 2014 La.App. 4 Cir. 0323, 2014 La. App. LEXIS 3132, 2014 WL 4923074 (La. Ct. App. 2014).

Opinion

MAX N. TOBIAS, JR., Judge.

11 Prime Insurance Company (“Prime”), the plaintiff/appellant, appeals a summary judgment in favor of defendant/appellee, Imperial Fire and Casualty Insurance [673]*673Company (“Imperial”), in a case involving the taxicab insurance market in Louisiana, and particularly, New Orleans. After reviewing the record and applicable law, we reverse the summary judgment in Imperial’s favor and remand the matter to the trial court for further proceedings.

The facts as alleged by Prime are as follows: The focus of the underlying matter centers primarily around a class action lawsuit filed on 9 December 2002 in the 19th Judicial District Court for the Parish of East Baton Rouge (hereafter “the underlying suit”). At the time that suit was filed, only two companies sold taxicab insurance for the New Orleans market: Prime and Imperial.

The premise of the underlying suit was that Prime was liable to its policyholders because it sold non-compliant insurance policies to taxicab owners and drivers. The lawsuit alleged that Louisiana law, as found in La. R.S. 45:200.4 and 32:866(A), required that cab policies pay full coverage with zero deductible. | ¡¿However, the Prime policies contained a $500 self-insured retention (“S.I.R.”) provision, thereby violating the law. In addition, it was further alleged that the policies violated Louisiana law by requiring the deduction of defense costs. The fact that the policies were non-compliant was never disputed by Prime.

In fact, at the time the underlying suit was filed, Prime was already working with the Louisiana Department of Insurance (“DOI”) to correct the deficiencies, which was accomplished in mid-March 2003. Moreover, during the pendency of the underlying suit, the trial court unequivocally held that the non-compliant policies were automatically reformed, pursuant to Louisiana law. It is clear throughout the almost seven years that the underlying suit was prosecuted that no plaintiff — named or putative — had ever suffered any damage as a result of Prime’s policies. Moreover, Prime believed that Imperial and Gregory Porobil (“Porobil”) (co-defendants in the matter sub judice), allegedly acting in concert with others, filed and continued to prosecute the underlying suit, knowing there were no damages. This, Prime claims, was done in order to achieve an ulterior motive — to damage Prime’s insurance business in New Orleans.

The record reflects that Imperial and Porobil have a long history together. The owner of Imperial — J.E. Brignae (“Brig-nac”) — and Porobil have been friends for over thirty-five years. Porobil began handling Imperial’s legal business when it entered the Louisiana taxicab insurance market in the 1990s and has been its attorney since, managing an average of fifteen of Imperial’s taxi claims each year. In addition, Porobil owned, at all pertinent times, Excell Underwriters, Inc., which Rserved almost exclusively as Imperial’s taxicab insurance. agent. That relationship continued until 2011, when Brignae, and others, purchased Excell from Porobil.1 Defendant, Gene Alleman (“Alleman”), and Poro-bil also had a close relationship, having been business partners prior to, and at all times during, the underlying suit. In December 2000, Porobil and Alleman started a taxicab dispatch service together — N.O. Transportation Group, L.L.C. (“NOTG”)— that also operated taxicabs servicing New Orleans under the trade names “White Fleet” and “Elk’s Elite.” In addition, Alleman created N.O. Elite Leasing, L.L.C. (“Elite”) around the same time, which, in turn, owned and operated a num[674]*674ber of taxicabs and had always insured its cabs with Excell, with the exception of the one-month period at issue in the underlying suit.

Within a year of going into business together, Alleman, allegedly of his own accord, took one of his taxicabs off Poro-bil’s Excell/Imperial insurance policy in order to purchase a month-long policy with Porobil’s competitor, Bennie Jefferson of Maximal Insurance. At the time, Maximal was Prime’s only insurance agent in New Orleans. Alleman testified that he made this move in order to save twenty-five dollars a month and to “stay competitive” in the taxicab operation business. Alle-man also testified that he knew that Maximal was Excell’s direct competitor.

During the one month of Maximal/Prime coverage, Alleman’s taxicab did not get into any accidents, and, therefore, was never exposed to any claim for |4damages or had the occasion to test the policy’s provisions. Nevertheless, after learning of the specifics of the policy, Porobil suggested that Alleman might want to file a class action suit against Prime. Porobil sent Alleman to Andre LaPlace (“LaPlace”), a Baton Rouge attorney, who, Porobil stated, knew more about class actions than he. LaPlace filed the underlying suit on the grounds that Alleman had heard that Prime tried to collect a deductible from another policyholder. The stated basis of the suit was that Prime had allegedly failed to comply with Louisiana’s full coverage requirement under the financial responsibility laws, because the policies of insurance issued by Prime to certain Louisiana taxicab drivers contained a $500 deductible/SIR and deduction of defense costs provisions. Despite the fact that those provisions had never been enforced against Alleman and/or Floyd Bergeron (“Bergeron”), another named plaintiff, the suit sought reimbursement of premium payments, S.I.R. payments, voidance of the insurance policies, attorney’s fees, and costs. At some point thereafter, Porobil enrolled as cocounsel in the underlying suit.

Throughout the pendency of the underlying suit, the class action plaintiffs produced no evidence that they had actually suffered damages. Only four plaintiffs were ever named: Alleman, Bergeron, Elite, and Montaster Girgis (“Girgis”).2 The originally named plaintiffs were Alle-man, as representative for the insured policyholders, and Bergeron, as representative for third-party claimants. Neither was able to produce any evidence that they were in any way damaged by the Prime Ispolicies. Less than a year after filing the suit, Bergeron and the putative third-party claimants’ actions were dismissed after counsel for the plaintiffs represented to the court that there was no opposition to an Exception of No Cause of Action filed by another defendant to the matter. When Prime was finally able to depose Alleman in 2006, he admitted that he had absolutely no exposure to any third-party claims against him and never had the occasion to test the applicability of the S.I.R. or defense costs provisions. In fact, Alle-man knew of no one who had paid the S.I.R.

In addition, neither Alleman nor Berger-on had an attorney’s fee contract with their lawyers. Neither Alleman nor any of the other plaintiffs paid for any litigation expenses; Alleman had no idea who bore those costs. In his deposition, Porobil stated that he and LaPlace bore all the [675]*675costs of the proceedings.3

On 24 March 2005, Prime filed a motion for summary judgment to show that, prior to the filing of the underlying suit, Prime and the DOI had begun negotiations to correct any defects in the Prime policies. Within two months of the filing of the suit, Prime and the DOI had entered into an agreement that essentially mooted all claims brought in the lawsuit. This final agreement between Prime and the DOI was made known to the plaintiffs on numerous occasions through written discovery, depositions, and Prime’s 2005 motion for summary judgment.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
151 So. 3d 670, 2014 La.App. 4 Cir. 0323, 2014 La. App. LEXIS 3132, 2014 WL 4923074, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/prime-insurance-co-v-imperial-fire-casualty-insurance-co-lactapp-2014.