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Sawyer v. Westchester Fire Insurance Company11/20/2002
As modified December 19, 2002; no change in judgment. Appellants’ petition for rehearing denied.
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS
California Rules of Court, rule 977(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 977(b). This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 977.
Plaintiffs Tran Bernard Sawyer, Elaine L. Williams and Paul Lane, hereafter referred to as appellants, appeal from a judgment following the trial court's rulings on appellants' and defendant St. Paul Fire and Marine Insurance Company's cross-motions for summary judgment. The trial court found no liability on the part of St. Paul to indemnify a judgment in favor of plaintiffs against the State of California, but did find St. Paul had a duty to defend and awarded plaintiffs costs of defense. Appellants appeal the ruling on the indemnity issue and St. Paul appeals the ruling on the duty to defend.
Appellants also appeal from the summary judgment entered in favor of defendant Westchester Fire Insurance Company, finding no liability as an excess carrier.
We affirm the judgments.
FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
The Underlying Personal Injury Actions
This litigation arises from underlying personal injury actions brought by appellants Tran Bernard Sawyer, Elaine L. Williams and Paul Lane against the State of California and MCM Construction Company for injuries sustained in an automobile accident on the southbound Long Beach Freeway (I-710) north of the Rosecrans exit in the City of Paramount. On the night of January 21, 1993, Williams and Lane were passengers in a vehicle driven by Sawyer, an uninsured motorist, that struck a stationary vehicle disabled in their lane from an earlier accident. Appellants claimed that a cause of the accident was the absence of lighting on the freeway due to construction work. Lane, the most severely injured, was rendered a quadriplegic as a result of the accident.
In July 1990 at the time of the accident MCM was performing construction work on the Century Freeway (I-105), including its intersection with the Long Beach Freeway under a contract entered into with the State of California. The contract called for the closure of existing ramps to effect the integration of the two freeways and the abandonment of lighting standards along the closed ramps and transition roads, but did not call for any temporary lighting to replace the abandoned standards. The State prepared the plans and specifications for the work to be performed and made the decisions regarding the design and placement of lighting for the construction of the Century Freeway, without consulting anyone at MCM.
Lane filed his personal injury complaint against the State and the County of Los Angeles on November 17, 1993. Sawyer and Williams filed their complaint on January 13, 1994 against the State and other defendants, including the drivers involved in the prior accident whose vehicles were disabled. These two lawsuits were later consolidated. The State answered both complaints, asserting several affirmative defenses, including "design immunity" from liability for the plans and specifications pertaining to the lighting on the freeway under Government Code section 830.6.
MCM was later added to both complaints as a "Doe" defendant, and obtained summary judgment in both cases on November 15, 1996. The court found that MCM had no duty to provide lighting in the area where the accident occurred because, inter alia, MCM had performed its work in accordance with th
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