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Hartford Casualty Insurance Company v. Halliburton Company9/27/2001
to the jury. The jury answered these interrogatories by finding that Ingram's shooting was not "accidental." The necessary result of the jury's finding was that Ingram's injuries were not covered by the policy because they were not accidental.
. We cited to Maryland Casualty with approval in Keys v. Rehabilitation Ctrs., Inc., 574 So. 2d 579 (Miss. 1990). In Keys, the indemnity claim arose from a contract between a close corporation and a former shareholder, Keys. The corporation settled a wrongful death claim pending against it and then sued Keys for his pro rata share. The wrongful death claim settled without a trial; consequently, there was no adjudication of fault. The corporation sued Keys after he refused its demands to indemnify it according to the indemnity agreement. This claim proceeded to trial. The jury found that Keys was liable to the corporation under the indemnity agreement. Keys' argument before this Court was that even if the indemnity agreement was enforceable, he was still not liable because the corporation failed to prove that it paid under compulsion. We said:
Under the rules of [our prior] cases, predicate to recovering indemnity from the Keyses, [plaintiff] was obligated to prove that it was liable for the [wrongful] death. On the other hand, indemnifying parties such as the Keyses have no right to insist that their indemnitee endure the hazards of trial by jury as a condition for enforcing the indemnity agreement. [citations omitted] Absent some contractual provision to the contrary [plaintiff] was entitled to use its own good judgment and effect such settlement of the wrongful death claim as it deemed prudent, provided only that when proceeding to enforce the indemnity agreement that it prove that it was indeed liable to the [wrongful death] survivors and that the amount it paid in settlement was reasonable. An indemnitee such as [plaintiff] cannot simply settle, and then send the indemnitor his share of the bill. It must, in the words of our rule, prove that it paid under compulsion and no case more perceptively illustrates this point than Maryland Casualty Co. v. R. H. Lake Agency, Inc. Id. at 584, 585.
We held it was error for the underlying issue of the corporation's liability not to have been submitted to the jury along with the indemnity agreement issue, and the record was insufficient for us to imply such liability although substantial evidence existed. Consequently, we reversed and remanded.
. We very recently addressed a case almost identical to the case sub judice, which action arose from the same well blowout at issue here. In Certain Underwriters at Lloyd's of London v. Knostman, 783 So.2d 694 (Miss. 2001), Tomlinson (Hartford's insured) was the defendant. Pursuant to a contract with Tomlinson, Texas Snubbing performed certain activities in conjunction with the drilling of the well. After the well blowout, Texas Snubbing was one of the named defendants, along with Tomlinson, Halliburton, Dan Pierce, and others. Texas Snubbing settled the claims against it prior to any adjudication of fault. Texas Snubbing, in turn, sued Tomlinson for indemnity. The trial judge granted Tomlinson's motion for summary judgment. We affirmed.
. This Court, relying on Keys, supra, held that Texas Snubbing's payments were voluntary. Texas Snubbing presented arguments similar to the ones now presented by Hartford. Texas Snubbing asserted that it would have been able to prove that it was legally liable to the injured party and that it paid under compulsion at trial. Id. at 12.
We rejected this argument due to the Texas Snubbing president's consistent denial of liability "or any wrongdoing associated with the blowout in previo
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