Stephen P. Koons v. XL Insurance America Inc

620 F. App'x 110
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Third Circuit
DecidedJuly 28, 2015
Docket13-4126
StatusUnpublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 620 F. App'x 110 (Stephen P. Koons v. XL Insurance America Inc) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Stephen P. Koons v. XL Insurance America Inc, 620 F. App'x 110 (3d Cir. 2015).

Opinion

OPINION *

CHAGARES, Circuit Judge.

Stephen P. Koons appeals the District Court’s order denying his motion for summary judgment and granting summary judgment in favor of the defendant, Greenwich Insurance Company. 1 Non-party *112 Erie Insurance Exchange has filed a motion in this Court to substitute for Koons, which was referred to us by the motions panel. For the following reasons, we will deny Erie’s motion to substitute, vacate the judgment of the District Court, and remand with instructions to dismiss the case as moot.

I.

We write solely for the parties and therefore recite only the facts necessary to our disposition. We have previously had occasion to summarize the somewhat complicated factual background of this matter, Koons v. XL Ins. Am., Inc., 516 Fed.Appx. 217 (3d Cir.2013), and we assume familiarity with that .decision.

Briefly, this action involves an insurance coverage dispute arising from the death of Jeremy Andre, an employee of Koons’s company who was killed by a garbage disposal truck on the job. After his death, Andre’s estate sued Koons personally (the “Andre action”). Greenwich and XL Insurance America refused to defend or indemnify Koons in the Andre action, and he brought this action seeking to force them to do so, among other claims. Koons appealed the District Court’s initial grant of summary judgment in favor of the defendant insurance companies, and we reversed and remanded, holding that there were disputed issues of material fact. Koons, 516 Fed.Appx. at 222-23. In the meantime, another insurer, Erie Insurance Exchange, stepped in to defend Koons in the Andre action.

On remand, the parties renewed cross-motions for summary judgment and the District Court again granted summary judgment. Koons timely appealed. .While this appeal was pending, Erie settled the Andre action and Koons assigned to it all rights he may have with respect to this action. See Erie Mot. to Sub. ¶ 8; Erie Reply in Support of Mot. to Sub. Ex. B. Erie thus filed a motion to substitute as the appellant, arguing that it is the true party in interest and is entitled to appear as Koons’s subrogee on the basis of the assignment. Erie Mot. to Sub. ¶ 9. Greenwich opposes the motion, and the motions panel referred it to us to resolve as part of the appeal.

II.

The District Court had diversity jurisdiction. 28 U.S.C. § 1332. Koons contends that we have final-order jurisdiction, pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291. However, as explained further below, we conclude the case is moot and, therefore, we lack subject-matter jurisdiction. See Already, LLC v. Nike, Inc., — U.S.-, 133 S.Ct. 721, 726, 184 L.Ed.2d 553 (2013) (explaining that a mooted case is no longer a “ ‘Case’ or ‘Controversy for purposes of Article III”).

III.

A.

The first question presented by this appeal is whether Koons has standing to pursue it. The familiar requirements of standing are (1) an injury in fact, (2) a causal connection between the injury and the conduct complained of, and (3) a likelihood that the injury will be redressed by a favorable decision on the claim. Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560, 112 S.Ct. 2130, 119 L.Ed.2d 351 (1992). The injury in fact must be concrete, particularized, and either actual or imminent. Id. Greenwich argues that Koons no longer has any injury that this action is capable of redressing because he has been fully indemnified in the underlying Andre action.

Our decision in Wheeler v. Travelers Insurance Co., 22 F.3d 534 (3d Cir.1994), *113 largely controls. There, the plaintiff sued Travelers for reimbursement of medical expenses. We held that she lacked standing because “Medicare paid the medical expenses for which she seeks a recovery” and “she coneedefd] that she will be obliged to remit any payment she now receives from Travelers to Medicare.” Id. at 538 (quotation marks omitted). She therefore did not have the requisite personal interest in the litigation to satisfy Article Ill’s case or controversy requirement. Id.; see also Simon v. E. Ky. Welfare Rights Org., 426 U.S. 26, 39, 96 S.Ct. 1917, 48 L.Ed.2d 450 (1976) (holding that Article III requires that the individual who seeks to invoke the jurisdiction of the federal courts “stand to profit in some personal interest”).

Similarly, Koons no longer has anything personally to gain from a favorable outcome to this litigation. As Erie made clear in its motion to substitute, it has fully indemnified Koons in the Andre action, Erie Mot. to Sub. ¶ 8, and Koons has signed over to Erie his right to any recovery in this action, Erie Reply in Support of Mot. to Sub. Ex. B. Thus, as in Wheeler, Koons no longer has any personal stake in the eventual outcome.

There is a slight difference between this case and Wheeler, because Koons was only indemnified by Erie after he had brought this action, whereas the plaintiff in Wheeler had already been reimbursed by Medicare when 'she filed suit. Thus, Koons unquestionably had standing at the outset of the litigation, whereas Wheeler did not. This merely transforms the question into one of mootness. See McNair v. Synapse Grp., Inc., 672 F.3d 213, 227 n. 17 (3d Cir.2012) (recognizing that the “Article III problem might sound in mootness if Appellants initially had standing to seek injunc-tive relief but lost it”); Altman v. Bedford Cent. Sch. Dist., 245 F.3d 49, 69 (2d Cir.2001) (“[I]f the plaintiff loses standing ... during the pendency of the proceedings ..., the matter becomes moot, and the court loses jurisdiction.”). And Article Ill’s requirement that the “case or controversy be ‘actual [and] ongoing’ extends throughout all stages of federal judicial proceedings, including appellate review.” Rendell v. Rumsfeld, 484 F.3d 236, 240-41 (3d Cir.2007) (quoting Khodara Envtl., Inc. v. Beckman, 237 F.3d 186, 193 (3d Cir.2001) (alteration in original)). Given Koons’s lack of an ongoing interest in the litigation, the case as to him is moot.

B.

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Bluebook (online)
620 F. App'x 110, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/stephen-p-koons-v-xl-insurance-america-inc-ca3-2015.