St. Pierre v. Dyer

208 F.3d 394, 2000 U.S. App. LEXIS 5034, 2000 WL 305936
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Second Circuit
DecidedMarch 24, 2000
DocketDocket No. 99-7118
StatusPublished
Cited by204 cases

This text of 208 F.3d 394 (St. Pierre v. Dyer) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
St. Pierre v. Dyer, 208 F.3d 394, 2000 U.S. App. LEXIS 5034, 2000 WL 305936 (2d Cir. 2000).

Opinion

KEARSE, Circuit Judge:

Plaintiff pro se Andre St. Pierre, who was represented by counsel in the district court, appeals from so much of a judgment of the United States District Court for the Northern District of New York, David R. Homer, Magistrate Judge, as dismissed his complaint seeking damages from defendants Luke R. Dyer and Coburn Insuring Agency, Inc. (“Coburn”), for, inter alia, negligence, fraud, breach of contract, and breach of fiduciary duty, and seeking indemnification and contribution from Dyer, Coburn, and defendant Agents Service Corporation (“ASERCO”) for damages owed by St. Pierre in connection with the loss of uninsured leased property. The district court ruled that res judicata barred all of St. Pierre’s claims except those for indemnity and contribution; the court concluded that St. Pierre lacked standing to assert his claims for indemnity and contribution because he had failed to assert a statute-of-limitations defense in the action in which he was ordered to pay damages relating to the uninsured property, thereby rendering his injury self-inflicted. For the reasons that follow, we conclude that principles of standing and res judicata are largely inapplicable to the present suit, and we vacate the judgment and remand for further proceedings.

I. BACKGROUND

The present case is the second action brought by St.- Pierre against Dyer, Co-burn, and ASERCO. The factual background of the controversy is set out in greater detail in the opinion of the district court dismissing St. Pierre’s first action, see St. Pierre v. Coburn Insuring Agency, 1993 WL 85757, at *1-3 (N.D.N.Y.1993) (“St Pierre I”), aff'd, 28 F.3d 275, 276 (2d Cir.1994) (per curiam) (“St. Pierre II”), and will be summarized only briefly here.

In July 1987, St. Pierre leased a tractor and trailer from Kenworth Metropolitan, Inc. (“Kenworth”); the lease required, inter alia, that St. Pierre maintain insurance on the leased property for the sole benefit of Kenworth. Dyer, an insurance broker employed by Coburn, helped St. Pierre to obtain a property insurance policy from Connecticut Indemnity Company (“Connecticut Indemnity”) and to obtain financing for the insurance through ASERCO. The policy named St. Pierre as the insured and Kenworth and its holding company as loss payees.

St. Pierre was required to pay monthly installments to ASERCO in order to maintain his coverage. In November 1987, however, he missed a payment. ASERCO mailed notice that the policy would be canceled if payment were not received by December 28, 1987. When payment was [398]*398not received by that date, ASERCO sent a second notice, dated December 30, 1987, stating that St. Pierre’s policy would be canceled as of December 31, 1987. According to St. Pierre, however, because of erroneous instructions from Coburn to AS-ERCO, ASERCO mailed the notices to an inappropriate address, and St. Pierre did not receive them until late January 1988. In the meantime, he sent ASERCO a check for the overdue premium, which AS-ERCO negotiated in mid-January; and after St. Pierre received the notice of cancellation, he was assured by Dyer that the insurance remained in force. Connecticut Indemnity, however, canceled the policy as of December 31,1987.

On February 19, 1988, the tractor and trailer were stolen. Coburn filed a claim on behalf of St. Pierre; by letter dated March 1, 1988, Connecticut Indemnity refused to pay. In September 1988, St. Pierre sued Dyer, Coburn, and ASERCO, asserting eight claims against Dyer and Coburn or against Dyer and ASERCO, and seeking damages for, inter alia, negligence, fraud, breach of contract, and breach of fiduciary duty. St.' Pierre asserted that but for defendants’ misfea-sances in connection with his policy, Connecticut Indemnity would have paid his claim for the loss of the tractor and trailer. In St. Pierre I, the district court granted summary judgment dismissing that complaint on the ground that, because St. Pierre was not a “loss payee” under the policy, he had no standing to maintain the suit. See 1993 WL 85757, at *6. On appeal, we affirmed; but we noted that

[sjhould any claim be made against'St. Pierre by Kenworth or any other party based upon the failure to maintain insurance, [St. Pierre] could then assert claims over against defendants-appellees that would accrue only when the claim was asserted against him, and therefore would not be time-barred.

St. Pierre II, 28 F.3d at 276.

In 1996, Kenworth’s successor in interest, American Iron & Metal, Inc. (“American Iron”), brought suit against St. Pierre, a Canadian citizen, in Quebec, seeking damages under the lease. St. Pierre defaulted, and a . judgment was entered against him in the amount of $102,409.23.

Following final judgment in the Quebec action, St. Pierre and his company, plaintiff Que-Van Transport, Inc., commenced the present action. As in the first action, St. Pierre sued Dyer, Coburn, and ASER-CO, asserting eight claims against various combinations of defendants and seeking damages for inter alia, breach of fiduciary duty, breach of contract, and negligence in connection with the handling of his account; in addition, St. Pierre asserted two claims against all three defendants seeking contribution and indemnification with respect to the amount of the American Iron judgment against him.

In a Memorandum-Decision and Order reported at 21 F.Supp.2d 138 (1998) (“St. Pierre III”), the district court dismissed the complaint. As discussed in Part II.A. below, the court ruled that St. Pierre’s claims other than for indemnity and contribution were the same as those that had been dismissed in St. Pierre I and were therefore barred by res judicata. See St. Pierre III, 21 F.Supp.2d at 141. As discussed in greater detail in Part II.B. below, the district court dismissed St. Pierre’s claims for indemnity and contribution on the ground that St. Pierre did not have standing to sue. See id. at 145-47.

With respect to the latter dismissal, the district court noted that American Iron’s breach-of-contract action against St. Pierre was brought in 1996 but that, under Quebec law, the action was subject to a five-year “prescription,” analogous to a statute of limitations. See id. at 143. Because that five-year period had commenced no later than March 1, 1988, when Connecticut Indemnity denied coverage, the court concluded that St. Pierre had had a valid timeliness defense against American Iron’s 1996 action. The court rejected arguments by St. Pierre that the American Iron action was timely under either of two [399]*399Quebec-law principles that may affect an action’s timeliness, to wit, the doctrine of “interruption,” which provides that a prescription period is interrupted by the “mere acknowledgment” of the debt, id. at 144, or the doctrine of “revival,” under which one who has a timeliness defense to an otherwise enforceable debt may restart the prescription period by a “renunciation” of the defense, id. at 144-45. Although St. Pierre submitted an affidavit stating that he had “consistently acknowledged [his] obligations to Kenworth” “[t]hroughout” the prescription period (St. Pierre Affidavit dated April 21, 1998 (“St. Pierre Aff.”), ¶ 34), the court found his assertion to be “self-serving,” “conclusory,” and unsupported by any evidence, St. Pierre III, 21 F.Supp.2d at 144. The court rejected St.

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Bluebook (online)
208 F.3d 394, 2000 U.S. App. LEXIS 5034, 2000 WL 305936, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/st-pierre-v-dyer-ca2-2000.