Progressive Mountain Ins. Co. v. Mobile Maint. on the Go, LLLP

608 F.Supp.3d 1333

PROGRESSIVE MOUNTAIN INSURANCE COMPANY, Petitioner,

v.MOBILE MAINTENANCE ON THE GO, LLLP, Helene Julien and Jesse Espinoza, Respondents.

CIVIL ACTION NO. 1:20-CV-1665-JPB

United States District Court, N.D. Georgia, Atlanta Division.

Signed June 17, 2022

Erica L. Parsons, Litner & Deganian, P.C., Atlanta, GA, Jennifer Pridgeon, Lueder Larkin & Hunter, LLC, Atlanta, GA, for Petitioner.

ORDER

J. P. BOULEE, United States District Judge

This matter comes before the Court on Progressive Mountain Insurance Company's ("Petitioner") Renewed Motion for Summary Judgment [Doc. 87]. This Court finds as follows:

PROCEDURAL HISTORY

In the instant case, the parties dispute whether an insurance policy, issued by Petitioner to Mobile Maintenance on the Go, LLLP ("Mobile Maintenance"), provides coverage for injuries sustained by Helene Julien ("Julien") following a 2018 car accident involving an uninsured motorist. Petitioner filed a Petition for Declaratory Judgment on April 17, 2020, and an Amended Petition for Declaratory Judgment on June 1, 2020, against Mobile Maintenance, Julien and Jesse Espinoza.¹ [Doc. 1]; [Doc. 11]. Petitioner moved for default judgment as to Mobile Maintenance on October 21, 2020. [Doc. 28]. On February 17, 2021, Petitioner filed a motion for summary judgment. [Doc. 40]. Jesse Espinoza and Julien (together, "Respondents") then filed a motion to withdraw admissions—some of which formed the basis of Petitioner's summary judgment motion—on February 26, 2021. [Doc. 46]. On February 10, 2022, the Court granted the motion to withdraw admissions and denied without prejudice Petitioner's motion for summary judgment.²

[Doc. 85]. Petitioner filed a Renewed Motion for Summary Judgment on February 18, 2022. [Doc. 87].

FACTUAL HISTORY

The Court derives the facts of this case from Petitioner's Statement of Undisputed Material Facts, [Doc. 87-2]; Respondents’ Response to Petitioner's Statement of Material Facts Not in Dispute, [Doc. 89]; and Petitioner's Reply to Respondents’ Response to Petitioner's Statement of Material Facts Not in Dispute, [Doc. 92-1]. The Court also conducted its own review of the record.

The Local Rules of this Court require a respondent to a summary judgment motion to include with its responsive brief "[a] response to the movant's statement of undisputed facts." N.D. Ga. Civ. R. 56.1(B)(2)(a). The Local Rules make clear that the Court will deem each of the movant's facts admitted unless the respondent refutes or objects to the fact or shows that the fact is either immaterial or unsupported by the record.³ Further, in accordance with the Local Rules, this Court will not consider unsupported facts. The Court will, however, use its discretion to consider all facts the Court deems material after reviewing the record. For the purpose of adjudicating this Motion, the facts are as follows.

Mobile Maintenance is a family cleaning business operated by Julien, Jesse Espinoza (Julien's daughter) and Javier Espinoza (Jesse Espinoza's husband). In March 2015, United Services Automobile Association ("USAA") issued an automobile insurance policy to Jesse Espinoza⁴ that covered two vehicles. [Doc. 89, pp. 7–8]. Later, in 2016, Jesse Espinoza completed a vendor agreement for Mobile Maintenance to clean apartments owned by AMLI, listing Mobile Maintenance as the vendor. Id. at 9–10. That agreement required Mobile Maintenance to obtain at least $1,000,000 in automobile liability insurance. [Doc. 84-3, p. 4]. Jesse Espinoza thus asked USAA to increase the coverage limits on the policy that was issued in 2015. [Doc. 88, p. 3]. USAA was unable to increase the policy limits and referred Jesse Espinoza to Petitioner, who issued a commercial automobile policy with the necessary coverage.⁵ Id. at 4.

At issue here are the terms of the policy from Petitioner (the "Policy") that provided coverage from January 18, 2018, to January 18, 2019,⁶ for a 2007 Dodge Ram, and specifically, whether those terms extend coverage to Julien. [Doc. 89, p. 2]; [Doc. 40-2, p. 3]. Around 10:52 PM on October 15, 2018, in Gwinnett County, Georgia, a Honda Civic—driven by Brandon Donald, an uninsured motorist—struck Julien when she was walking from the grocery store to her daughter's house. [Doc. 89, pp. 1–2]. Julien sustained severe injuries in the accident. Id. at 6. On October 2, 2020, Julien filed suit against Brandon Donald in the State Court of Gwinnett County and served Petitioner as the purported underinsured motorist carrier.⁷ Id. at 7; see [Doc. 40-3].

The Policy named Mobile Maintenance as the insured, and premium payments for the Policy were made via electronic transfers from Mobile Maintenance's bank account. [Doc. 89, pp. 2, 10–11]. When applying for the Policy, Jesse Espinoza represented that the vehicle to be insured was used only for business purposes. Id. at 6.

Two sections of the Policy are relevant to this action: the Uninsured Motorist Coverage Endorsement and the Medical Payments Coverage Endorsement (the "Endorsements"). The Uninsured Motorist Coverage Endorsement stated that Petitioner would

pay for damages, other than punitive or exemplary damages, which an insured is legally entitled to recover from the owner or operator of an uninsured auto because of bodily injury or property damage:

1. [s]ustained by an insured;

2. caused by an accident; and

3. arising out of the ownership, maintenance, or use of an uninsured auto.

Id. at 4. The Uninsured Motorist Coverage Endorsement provided the following definition of an "insured":

if the named insured shown on the declarations page is a corporation, partnership, organization, or any other entity that is not a natural person:

(i) any person occupying an insured auto or temporary substitute auto; and

(ii) any person who is entitled to recover damages covered by this endorsement because of bodily injury sustained by a person described in (i) above.

Id. The Medical Payments Coverage Endorsement provided coverage for expenses due to bodily injury "sustained by an insured; ... caused by an accident; and ... arising out of the ownership, maintenance or use of a motor vehicle or trailer." Id. at 5. The Medical Payments Coverage Endorsement defined "insured" as follows: "if the named insured shown on the declarations page is a corporation, partnership, organization, or any other entity that is not a natural person, [an ‘insured’ is] any person occupying [the] insured auto, temporary substitute auto, or a trailer while attached to an insured auto." Id. at 6.

In the Motion before the Court, Petitioner seeks a declaratory judgment that it owes no obligation to Julien, while Respondents claim that Julien is entitled to coverage under the Policy's Uninsured Motorist Coverage Endorsement and Medical Payments Coverage Endorsement.

ANALYSIS

A. Legal Standard

Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56(a), a "court shall grant summary judgment if the movant shows that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." A material fact is any fact that "is a legal element of the claim under the applicable substantive law which might affect the outcome of the case." Allen v. Tyson Foods, Inc., 121 F.3d 642, 646 (11th Cir. 1997). A genuine dispute exists when "the evidence is such that a reasonable jury could return a verdict for the nonmoving party." Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 248, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986). Ultimately, "[t]he basic issue before the court on a motion for summary judgment is ‘whether the evidence presents a sufficient disagreement to require submission to a jury or whether it is so one-sided that one party must prevail as a matter of law.’ " Allen, 121 F.3d at 646 (quoting Anderson, 477 U.S. at 251, 106 S.Ct. 2505 ).

The party moving for summary judgment bears the initial burden of showing that no genuine issue exists as to any material fact, "and in deciding whether the movant has met this burden the court must view the movant's evidence and all factual inferences arising from it in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party." Id. After the movant satisfies this initial burden, the nonmovant bears the burden of showing specific facts indicating that summary judgment is improper because a material issue of fact does exist. Id. However, "[a] mere ‘scintilla’ of evidence supporting the opposing party's position will not suffice; there must be enough of a showing that the jury could reasonably find for that party." Walker v. Darby, 911 F.2d 1573, 1577 (11th Cir. 1990) (quoting Anderson, 477 U.S. at 251, 106 S.Ct. 2505 ). If the record taken as a whole cannot lead "a rational trier of fact to find for the non-moving party, there is ‘no genuine issue for trial.’ " Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U.S. 574, 587, 106 S.Ct. 1348, 89 L.Ed.2d 538 (1986) (quoting First Nat'l Bank of Ariz. v. Cities Serv. Co., 391 U.S. 253, 288, 88 S.Ct. 1575, 20 L.Ed.2d 569 (1968) ).

B. Claim for Declaratory Relief

Petitioner argues that it is entitled to summary judgment because Julien is not an "insured" under the terms of the Policy and is thus not eligible for coverage under either the Uninsured Motorist Coverage Endorsement or the Medical Payments Coverage Endorsement. Respondents concede that Mobile Maintenance is the named insured on the Policy. However, they contend that this was an error and that they intended to procure a personal policy in the name of Javier Espinoza (who is not a party to this action) or Jesse Espinoza—in which case Julien, as a relative of the insured, would receive coverage—rather than a commercial automobile policy insuring Mobile Maintenance. Below, the Court considers the Policy's terms as applied to this case before turning to the parties’ respective intentions.

Under Georgia law, "insurance is a matter of contract, and the parties to an insurance policy are bound by its plain and unambiguous terms." Richards v. Hanover Ins. Co., 250 Ga. 613, 299 S.E.2d 561, 563...