Travelers Property Casualty Company of America v. Ther Kansas City Landsmen, L.L.C.

592 F. App'x 876
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
DecidedJanuary 12, 2015
Docket14-11006
StatusUnpublished
Cited by15 cases

This text of 592 F. App'x 876 (Travelers Property Casualty Company of America v. Ther Kansas City Landsmen, L.L.C.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Travelers Property Casualty Company of America v. Ther Kansas City Landsmen, L.L.C., 592 F. App'x 876 (11th Cir. 2015).

Opinions

ROSENBAUM, Circuit Judge:

In this case, we address whether the appellee insurers owe a duty to defend their appellant insureds against a lawsuit alleging that the insureds willfully violated 15 U.S.C. § 1681c(g)(l), a provision of the Fair and Accurate Credit Transaction Act (“FACTA”) that prohibits “print[ing] more than the last five digits of the [credit][1] card number or the expiration date upon any receipt provided to the cardholder.... ” The answer to this inquiry depends on whether the underlying lawsuit against the insureds arguably alleges two things: (1) that the insureds acted with an intent that could be characterized as “willful” though not “knowing” and (2) that the insureds provided non-truncated receipts of credit-card account owners to people other than the owners of the credit cards used to conduct the transactions.

We find that the answer to the first question is “yes,” so if our review stopped here, we would reverse the district court’s entry of a declaratory judgment stating that the insurers have no duty to defend the insureds. But we must also address the second issue, which turns on whether § 1681c(g)(l), the statute that the insureds are alleged to have violated, prohibits vendors from providing non-truncated credit-card receipts to their customers for credit-card accounts that their customers do not own. If the answer to this question is “yes,” the insurance companies have a duty to defend, but if it is “no,” they do not.

This question appears to be one of first impression, and we think that it would likely benefit from briefing focused directly on it. In addition, the Federal Trade Commission, which is charged with administering the Fair Credit Reporting Act, which FACTA amended, may wish to be heard on the issue. For these reasons, we reverse the judgment of the district court ruling that the insurance companies had no duty to defend the insureds, and we remand for the district court to determine whether § 1681c(g)(l) prohibits vendors from providing their noncredit-card-account-holding customers with non-conforming receipts of their credit-card-account-holding customers.

I.

A. The Underlying Lawsuit Against the Insureds

In the District Court for the Western District of Missouri, Case No. 4:11-cv-01020 (the “Galloway Action”), Robert Galloway filed a putative class-action lawsuit against Defendants-Appellants, The Kansas City Landsmen, LLC, d/b/a Budget Rent A Car (“KC Landsmen”), and A Betterway Rent-a-Car, Inc. (“Betterway”) (collectively, the “Car Rental Companies”), in the pending case. In the Galloway Action, Galloway alleged that the Car Rental Companies had violated the provision' of FACTA that provides, in relevant part, “[N]o person that accepts credit cards or debit cards for the transaction of business shall print more than the last five digits of the card number or the expiration date upon any receipt provided to the cardholder at the point of the sale or transaction.”

Specifically, the Galloway Action alleged that the Car Rental Companies had print[879]*879ed credit-card receipts that included more than the last five digits of the card number as well as the card’s expiration daté and accordingly had “failed to protect [Galloway] and others similarly situated against identity theft and credit card and debit card fraud.:.. ” Galloway sought statutory and punitive damages on behalf of himself and the class that he proposed to represent, under 15 U.S.C. § 1681n(a), which imposes liability on “[a]ny person who willfully fails to comply with any requirement” of FACTA.2

B. The Pending Case

In the appeal now before us, Plaintiffs-Appellees Travelers Property Casualty Company of America (“Travelers”), and St. Paul Fire and Marine Insurance Company (“St. Paul”) (collectively, “Insurance Companies”) filed suit in the Northern District of Georgia for a declaratory judgment that they were not obligated to defend or indemnify their insureds, the Car Rental Companies, in the underlying Galloway Action. The Car Rental Companies counterclaimed for breach of contract and bad faith arising from the Insurance Companies’ failure to defend or indemnify them. Because the parties’ claims turn on whether the insurance-policy agreements made between the Insurance Companies and the Car Rental Companies provide coverage for the Car Rental Companies’ alleged FACTA violations in the Galloway Action, we review the applicable parts of the insurance policies that govern.

2. The Insurance Policies

Travelers issued four primary commercial general-liability insurance policies to Betterway (the “Travelers Policies”).3 St. Paul also issued four excess commercial general-liability insurance policies to Bet-terway (the “St. Paul Policies”) (together with the Travelers Policies, the “Policies”).4 Appellant KC Landsmen is a named insured on all of the Policies. As relevant to this appeal, the Travelers Policies are identical to one another, as are the St. Paul Policies.

The Travelers Policies insure the Car Rental Companies for damages arising from various injuries, including “personal injury” suffered by third parties. Coverage B of the commercial general-liability part of the Travelers Policies was amended by a “WEB XTEND LIABILITY” Endorsement to provide insurance coverage for “personal injury” stemming from the insured’s business:

COVERAGE B. PERSONAL AND ADVERTISING INJURY LIABILITY
(SECTION I — COVERAGES) is deleted in its entirety and replaced by the following:
COVERAGE B. PERSONAL INJURY, ADVERTISING INJURY AND WEB SITE INJURY LIABILITY
1. Insuring Agreement.
a. We will pay those sums that the insured becomes legally obligated to pay as damages because of “personal injury,” “advertising injury” or [880]*880“web site injury” to which this insurance applies ...
b. This insurance applies to:
(1) “Personal injury” caused by an offense arising out of your business, excluding advertising, publishing, broadcasting or telecasting done by or for you;
The Web Endorsement defines “personal injury,” in turn, as follows:
“Personal injury” means injury, other than “bodily injury,” arising out of one or more of the following offenses:
e. Oral, written or electronic publication of material that appropriates a person’s likeness, unreasonably places a person in a false light or gives, unreasonable publicity to a person’s private life.5
But the Travelers Policies also contain provisions that exclude from coverage “personal injury” knowingly inflicted by the insured:
This insurance does not apply to:
a. Knowing Violation of Rights of Another “Personal ...

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Bluebook (online)
592 F. App'x 876, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/travelers-property-casualty-company-of-america-v-ther-kansas-city-ca11-2015.