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American Justice Insurance Reciprocal v. Hutchinson3/27/2000
QUESTIONS CERTIFIED
Pursuant to Rule 23 of the Rules of the Supreme Court of Tennessee, this Court has accepted two questions certified to us by the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee. The questions are as follows: 1. Whether the Sheriff of Knox County and employees of the Knox County Sheriff's Department were volunteers of the Scott County Sheriff's Department when they received no compensation from Scott County but received their regular salary from Knox County.
2. Whether a standard liability policy is automatically forfeited when the insured fails to comply with the policy's notice provision, regardless of whether the insurer has been prejudiced by the delay.
As explained below, the answer to the first certified question is that the Knox County Sheriff and employees of the Knox County Sheriff's Department were volunteers of the Scott County Sheriff's Department when they rendered assistance in connection with a siege in Scott County but received no compensation from Scott County. We reach this conclusion because we find the term "volunteer," as used in the liability policy issued to the Scott County Sheriff's Department, to be ambiguous. With respect to the second question, we conclude that a standard liability policy is not automatically forfeited when the insured fails to comply with a policy's notice provision. Rather, breach of a notice provision establishes a presumption that the insurer was prejudiced by the failure to provide timely notice. The insured may rebut the presumption with competent evidence that the insurer was not prejudiced by the delay in notice.
FACTS AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
On January 22 and 23, 1994, Max Carpenter, a Scott County resident, barricaded himself in his trailer home in an effort to resist arrest. Believing Mr. Carpenter to be armed, law enforcement officials attempted to negotiate with him before resorting to the use of ammunition and tear gas to force Mr. Carpenter from the trailer. Initially the officers involved in the siege included only Scott County Sheriff's deputies and agents of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation ("TBI"). However at some point during the incident the Scott County Sheriff's Department asked the TBI to contact the Knox County Sheriff's Department to request assistance in removing Mr. Carpenter from the trailer home. In response to this request, Tim Hutchison, the Sheriff of Knox County, went with two deputies to the scene and aided efforts to eject Mr. Carpenter from the trailer. The Knox County Sheriff and deputies did not receive any form of compensation from Scott County in connection with the assistance they provided to the Scott County Sheriff's Department. As salaried employees of the Knox County Sheriff's Department, they each received their regular salary for the pay period that included the time they provided assistance in the Carpenter incident.
Mr. Carpenter died as a result of the confrontation with the law enforcement officials. As a result, in 1994, representatives of his estate filed a wrongful death suit against the Scott County Sheriff's Department and several of its deputies in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee. The Scott County defendants were served with the complaint in August and October 1994, and filed an answer in January 1995. On June 6, 1995, pursuant to discovery procedures, they issued disclosures in which they stated that American Justice Insurance Reciprocal ("American Reciprocal"), the liability insurance carrier for the Scott County Sheriff's Department, may be liable to satisfy all or part of any judgment rendered against them. A copy of their policy with Americ
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