Case ID: f-appx_533/html/0736-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

ALLSTATE INDEMNITY COMPANY, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Nicole Johnson RIVERSON, Defendant, and James Curtis, husband and their marital community composed thereof; et al., Defendants-Appellants.
    No. 12-35529.
    United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.
    Argued and Submitted July 9, 2013.
    Filed July 15, 2013.
    Vernon Scott Finley, Douglas Frederick Foley, Esquire, Douglas Foley & Associates, PLLC, Vancouver, WA, for Plaintiff-Appellee.
    Darrell Cochran, PFAU Cochran Ver-tetis Kosnoff PLLC, Tacoma, WA, for Defendants-Appellants.
    
      Before M. SMITH and N.R. SMITH, Circuit Judges, and WALTER, Senior District Judge.
    
    
      
       The Honorable Donald E. Walter, Senior District Judge for the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, sitting by designation.
    
   MEMORANDUM

Defendants-Appellants Nicole Johnson Riverson, James and Leila Curtis, and James Curtis as guardian for S.C., appeal the district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of Plaintiff-Appellee Allstate Indemnity Company (Allstate) on Allstate’s claims for declaratory relief. We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291, and we affirm.

The district court did not err in concluding that the acts of J.J., Riverson’s minor child, were excluded from coverage under the “sexual molestation” exclusion of Riv-erson’s Home Day Care Coverage Endorsement. In construing the language of an insurance policy under Washington law, we examine the contract as a whole. E-Z Loader Boat Trailers, Inc. v. Travelers Indem. Co., 106 Wash.2d 901, 726 P.2d 439, 443 (1986). “A policy provision is ambiguous when, on its face, it is fairly susceptible to two different interpretations, both of which are reasonable.” Id. (citations omitted). “A provision, however, is not ambiguous merely because the parties suggest opposing meanings.” Mayer v. Pierce Cnty. Med. Bureau, Inc., 80 Wash.App. 416, 909 P.2d 1323, 1326 (1995) (citation omitted). “[A]mbiguity will not be read into a contract where it can be reasonably avoided.” Id. (citation and internal quotation marks omitted).

Here, the language of the Home Day Care Coverage Endorsement’s “sexual molestation” exclusion unambiguously excludes coverage for acts of sexual molestation by any insured person, not just an insured involved in the home day care business. Because J.J. was an insured person under the policy, the district court correctly determined that J.J.’s acts of sexual molestation were excluded from coverage. The district court also properly determined that because J.J. was an insured person, the policy’s joint obligations clause applied and excluded Riverson from coverage for liability arising from J.J.’s acts.

AFFIRMED. 
      
       This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by 9th Cir. R. 36-3.