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American Economy Insurance Compay v. Bogdahn2/10/2004
led by extant, effective and unwithdrawn Tenth-Circuit jurisprudence. Shebester v. Triple Crown Insurers teaches that uninvited state-court intrusion into pending federal decision-making process will meet with rejection. Until there is an en banc pronouncement which accepts the broad reformulation freedom that has long been recognized by other circuit courts, by the uniform certification act, by treatises and by commentators, I would not ignore Shebester's teachings on the restrictive sweep of reformulation. When there is doubt whether the certifying court intended to pose a much broader question than that which stands formulated, the better procedure appears to be either (a) to reformulate the question posed subject to the federal court's approval or (b) to request that the federal court submit an amended question.
B. Facial Ambiguity, Which Presents A Question of Substantive State Law, Is Not Encompassed Within the Certified Question
By concluding the policy is facially unambiguous and rejecting parol evidence as a permissible tool of construing the insurance contract in light of the parties' intent, the Western District determined an issue of substantive state law. Oklahoma and federal jurisprudence both recognize that the common law's parol evidence rule is a part of the pertinent state legal system's substantive law rather than a mere rule of evidence. Because the policy's ambiguity - an issue of substantive state law - was available for certification, its omission from the Tenth-Circuit order's text must be regarded as significant and cannot be cavalierly ignored.
In the absence of a direct or oblique invitation to so do, I would neither repeat nor re-examine here the federal trial court's earlier in-vain search for ambiguities. They were there found totally absent and we have not been invited - implicitly or explicitly - to re-decide that state-law issue by reploughing the same field. I would hence assume the policy is unambiguous and confine myself to determining, on a four-corners examination, whether the child's parents may be considered to stand in the status of an insured under the policy issued to a corporate entity. The policy's language is the only legitimate evidence of what the parties intended.
C. The Policy's UM Endorsement Does Not Include Coverage for Members of the Shareholder's Family
I would, as the court does today, declare Oklahoma law to be that Blake Bogdahn, a resident family member of the insured corporation's sole shareholder, cannot stand in the status of an insured within any of the classifications of "who is an insured" entitled to coverage under the terms of the UM endorsement in the policy issued to a corporate entity as a named insured.
Hillcrest Pharmacy is the only named insured listed on the policy's declaration page. Bogdahn's position as the corporation's sole shareholder does not confer on him a status equal to that of the insured company. Hillcrest Pharmacy is a distinct legal entity, separate and apart from Bogdahn. Shareholders are not listed anywhere on Hillcrest Pharmacy's policy. No reasonable interpretation of the policy's terms would construe the shareholder's status to be the same as that of the insured corporation entitled to UM indemnity.
Bogdahn claims that a construction adverse to his contention will render meaningless the UM coverage for a policy issued exclusively to a corporation. This is so because a corporation cannot occupy an automobile, sustain bodily injury or operate a motor vehicle. The decision that the UM endorsement will not, in this cause, produce coverage for Bogdahn's son does not render the corporate policy ineffectual. The purpose of a UM prov
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