 |
 |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Personal Injury Lawyers in your area.
|
|
|
|
|
Gainsco Insurance Co. v. Amoco Production Co.8/19/2002
he deposition testimony of Dudley Watts, a Gainsco claims examiner, as to the meaning of the quoted policy language, illustrates the Gainsco policy interpretation that Amoco finds offensive:
Q: My question is: What is the language in that bold sentence that tells you that this is not an insured contract?
A: There was no negligence on the part of my insured.
Q: Is that the only thing in that bold sentence that would suggest to you that there is no coverage here, there's no insured contract here?
A: That's what it says.
Q: Have you made either determination?
A: I made a determination that the insured was not negligent in the death of Abraham.
Q: Have you made any other factual determinations like that, as to whether anybody else in the whole world was negligent, as relates to this death of Mr. Abraham?
A: I found no negligence on the part of Andrews. That's all that was required.
Q: The question is: If you were the one making the coverage call or decision in this case, looking at that bold sentence, would you focus on whether Mr. Andrews was negligent or would you focus on whether Amoco was negligent, or would you focus on whether both of them were negligent?
A: I would focus on whether or not my insured was negligent.
Q: And that is all?
A: If--yeah. And if my insured is not negligent, then the sole negligence, then the sole indemnitee--sole negligence lies elsewhere.
[ ] Amoco argues that Gainsco was unreasonable when interpreting "sole tort liability," in focusing on Andrews' liability, and that it was unreasonable because the liability of the insured is not even me ntioned in the sentence. While that conclusion may be easy to draw, Gainsco did provide some rationale for its position. Amoco also deposed Glenda Bruton, Gainsco's product manager and the person who drafted the questioned language. She gave the following testimony:
Q: What are your memories of how you came up with that particular language in the bolded sentence?
A: The intent was to provide intermediate contractual liability coverage for written contracts.
Q: Tell me what intermediate contractual liability coverage is to you?
A: That means the--you have a sole or joint negligence of the insured in connection with the contract that they have with the indemnity . It's between the indemnity and the insured. It has to be either sole or joint negligence on the part of the insured.
[ ] Clearly, Gainsco's intent was that its policy would not cover its insured's contractual indemnity obligations unless the insured was himself also separately liable. When this subjective intent is considered, it may be said that Gainsco acted in subjective good faith in declining coverage. The problem is that the standard for first-party bad faith is objective, not subjective.
[ ] We conclude that a reasonable insurer would not have denied coverage based on the insured contract exclusion. The issue of coverage was not fairly debatable because the exclusion simply does not limit coverage to those situations where the insured is separately liable. Consequently, Gainsco's reliance on its subjective interpretation of the policy was not reasonable.
Issue No. 5: Did the district court err as a matter of law when it held that Amoco's indemnity claim was covered under Andrews' policy with Gainsco, when the total pollution exclusion showed no coverage existed?
[ ] This issue, of course, follows closely on the heels of the third issue discussed above. In that discussion, we concluded that G
Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 Wyoming Personal Injury Attorneys
Personal Injury Lawyers
|
| |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Personal Injury Lawyers in your area.
|
|