Ramage v. Alabama Insurance Guaranty Ass'n

919 F.2d 1010
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
DecidedJanuary 31, 1991
DocketNo. 90-1320
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 919 F.2d 1010 (Ramage v. Alabama Insurance Guaranty Ass'n) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Ramage v. Alabama Insurance Guaranty Ass'n, 919 F.2d 1010 (5th Cir. 1991).

Opinions

GEE, Circuit Judge:

Today we decide whether the district court erred in finding the Alabama Guaranty Insurance Association (the “AGIA”) solely liable as the successor in interest to the Early American Insurance Company (the “EAIC”), an insolvent insurer, for the EAIC’s obligation to pay an agreed settlement judgment to satisfy claims upon an EAIC policy. We also decide whether the district court properly held that the recovery of post-judgment interest is not limited by the AGIA’s statutory per claim limit on total liability. We conclude that the district court correctly interpreted the underlying insurance policies and the relevant Alabama law and therefore affirm.

Facts and Procedural History

Thomas Garner, while driving a Peter-built tractor-trailer, hit a car occupied by Mrs. Robin Ramage and her son Ryan Christopher Ramage. As a result of the collision, Mrs. Ramage suffered severe injuries; and her son died. J & J Trucking company owned the truck, but at the time of the collision J & J had leased it to Lloyd Busbee, Inc. (“Busbee”). The EAIC insured the trucks Busbee leased from J & J, including the one involved in the Ramage collision. The Ramage family sued Mr. Garner, J & J, and Busbee for damages in Mississippi state district court.

The parties settled on the day of trial for an aggregate sum of $400,000. Busbee, through the EAIC, agreed to pay $300,000 and J & J, through its primary carrier Chicago Insurance Co., agreed to pay $100,000. The state district court entered final judgments reflecting the settlement agreement. Chicago Insurance paid the $100,000 judgment against J & J, but the EAIC never paid the $300,000 judgment against Busbee that it had agreed to pay. An Alabama state court eventually delared the EAIC insolvent, and its debt to the Ramages remains unpaid to this day.

It is undisputed that the EAIC agreed to pay the judgment based on a policy in full force and effect at the time of the accident. The AGIA provides insolvency insurance for Alabama insurance carriers, such as the EAIC. Upon the EAIC’s insolvency, the AGIA assumed the EAIC’s unpaid claim obligations, subject to a statutory $150,000 per claim limit. As Busbee was both a resident of Alabama and an EAIC policyholder, the claims asserted against it are now rightfully asserted against the AGIA.

Upon learning that both the EAIC and Busbee were insolvent, the AGIA filed this declaratory judgment action in federal district court. The AGIA named as defendants the Ramages, The Home Insurance Company, and the Home Indemnity Company. The AGIA included the Home companies as defendants after learning that they insured J & J Trucking under a comprehensive motor vehicle liability policy commonly known as a “trucker’s policy” and under a general contract liability insurance policy. The AGIA maintains that the Home Companies are liable for the remaining $300,000 settlement amount under the policies issued to J & J. In the alternative, the AGIA contends that either the EAIC policy or the statute creating the AGIA limit its total liability to the Ramages to $150,000. The AGIA also maintains that its total liability limit, whatever that may be, limits any accrued post-judgment interest, because the total amount owed for any claim, including interest, cannot exceed $150,000.

Each of the parties filed motions for summary judgment. The district court [1012]*1012granted judgment for the Ramages and the Home Companies, concluding that: (1) The relevant insurance policies impose liability for the settlement judgment solely upon the EAIC and therefore upon the AGIA; (2) the AGIA’s $150,000 statutory cap on liability is a limit per claim, not a limit per occurrence; and (3) the $150,000 per claim liability limit is not applied to post-judgment interest.

Discussion

The AGIA contends that Mrs. Ram-age’s personal injury action and her son’s wrongful death action constitute one claim — and are thus subject to one $150,000 per claim limit — because they arose from the same car accident. The AGIA, however, entered into a stipulation with the Ramages in early 1988.1 In the stipulation, the AGIA explicitly agrees that the EAIC and the Ramages entered the state court settlement judgment to satisfy “two claims” of $150,000 each. The district court found that the stipulation established the AGIA’s acknowledgement that, although the claims arise from one occurrence, the Ramages assert two separate and distinct actions — a personal injury claim on behalf of Mrs. Ramage and a wrongful death claim on behalf of Ryan Christopher. Given the language of the stipulation, we conclude that the district court’s finding that two claims exist is not clearly erroneous. A stipulation made by the AGIA binds them on appeal, just as it bound them before the district court. The settlement judgment, which consolidated the personal injury action with the wrongful death action, disposed of two claims, not one.

Having decided that the Ramages are entitled to recovery for two claims, we conclude that neither Alabama law nor the EAIC policy restrict the amount recoverable for claims arising from one occurrence to $150,000, but impose that limit 'per claim. Alabama code section § 27-42-8, one of several provisions governing the activities of the AGIA, defines a covered claim as: “.an unpaid claim ... which arises out of and is within the coverage and not in excess of the applicable limits of an insurance policy to which this chapter applies issued by an insurer ...” In addition to the stated limits of a particular policy, the AGIA is further limited to: “only that amount of each covered claim which is in excess of $100 and is less than $150,000 ...” The recovery for a claim asserted against the AGIA is thus restricted to the lesser of: (1) the AGIA’s statutory limit; or (2) the underlying insurance policy from which the claim arises. Here, the statutory language places a limit on the liability amount for a claim — $150,000—but does not limit the number of claims which can be asserted from a particular occurrence. If a further limit exists so as to prevent recovery for both claims by the Ramages, it must be extracted from the EAIC policy, here the only other potential limit on the AGIA’s liability.

The provisions of the EAIC policy leave the Ramages’ claims wholly intact. An examination of the policy reveals — and the district court found — that the limit on the total amount recoverable for bodily injury per occurrence is $500,000 and the per claim limit is $150,000. An “occurrence”, invoking the $500,000 cap, is defined in the [1013]*1013policy as an accident, including continuous or repeated exposure to conditions, which results in bodily injury or property damage neither expected nor intended from the standpoint of the insured.” The policy further limits the losses sustained by “one person as the result of any one occurrence” —the per claim limit — to $150,000. The Ramage’s two claims — totaling $300,000— fall well within the $500,000 “per occurrence” limit. The two individual settlement awards that make up the $300,000 recovery —$150,000 for Mrs. Ramage’s personal injury claim and $150,000 for the wrongful death claim — are also within the policy per claim limits. The EAIC policy therefore does not absolve the AGIA from liability to the Ramages.

Liability of Other Insurers

The AGIA maintains that the Home Company policies, carried by J & J in addition to its primary insurance policy, reduce the AGIA’s liability for the settlement judgment.

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919 F.2d 1010, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/ramage-v-alabama-insurance-guaranty-assn-ca5-1991.