Title: Progressive Direct Ins. Co. v. Keen, et al.

State: alabama

Issuer: Alabama Supreme Court

Document:

Rel: November 18, 2022 
 
 
 
 
 
Notice: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the advance sheets of Southern 
Reporter.  Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions, Alabama Appellate Courts, 
300 Dexter Avenue, Montgomery, Alabama 36104-3741 ((334) 229-0650), of any typographical or other 
errors, in order that corrections may be made before the opinion is printed in Southern Reporter. 
 
 
SUPREME COURT OF ALABAMA 
 
OCTOBER TERM, 2022-2023 
 
_________________________ 
 
SC-2022-0466 
_________________________ 
 
Progressive Direct Insurance Company 
 
v. 
 
Madison Keen, Robert Creller, and Alfa Mutual Insurance 
Company 
 
 
 
Appeal from Baldwin Circuit Court 
(CV-21-900221) 
 
SELLERS, Justice. 
 
Progressive Direct Insurance Company ("Progressive") appeals 
from an order of the Baldwin Circuit Court granting a motion for a partial 
SC-2022-0466 
2 
 
summary judgment filed by Madison Keen and joined by Robert Creller 
and Alfa Mutual Insurance Company ("Alfa"); the trial court certified its 
order as final pursuant to Rule 54(b), Ala. R. Civ. P.  We reverse the trial 
court's judgment and remand the case for further proceedings. 
 
In September 2019, Keen was involved in a motor-vehicle accident.  
She sought compensation from Creller, who was the driver of the other 
vehicle involved in the accident.  The vehicle Creller was driving was 
owned by his parents and was insured by Alfa.  The evidence suggests 
that Creller and his spouse were living with Creller's parents at the time 
of the accident.  Alfa paid Keen the limits of the insurance policy, and 
Keen executed a settlement agreement and a release in favor of Creller 
and Alfa. 
 
In June 2021, Keen commenced the present action in the trial court, 
seeking underinsured-motorist benefits from two different policies, 
namely, a policy issued by Progressive covering the vehicle Keen was 
driving at the time of the accident and a policy issued by State Farm 
Automobile Insurance Company ("State Farm") covering a second vehicle 
in Keen's household.  Because Keen was driving the vehicle insured by 
Progressive at the time of the accident, her Progressive underinsured-
SC-2022-0466 
3 
 
motorist coverage was the primary insurance and the State Farm 
underinsured-motorist coverage was the secondary insurance.  
During the litigation, Creller was deposed and revealed the 
existence of an additional insurance policy covering his spouse's vehicle, 
which had been issued by Allstate Insurance Company ("Allstate") and 
which identified Creller as a named insured.  The discovery of the 
Allstate policy raised the possibility that Creller might have had 
additional liability insurance coverage that could have compensated 
Keen for her injuries. 
 
Keen subsequently amended her complaint to add Creller and Alfa 
as defendants and to add a claim seeking a judgment declaring that the 
settlement agreement and the release she had executed in favor of Creller 
and Alfa were void.  Based on the alleged existence of additional 
insurance benefits available under the Allstate policy, she asserted that 
there had been a mutual mistake among the parties to the settlement 
agreement and the release.1 
 
1Keen also stated claims alleging negligence and wantonness 
against Creller. 
SC-2022-0466 
4 
 
 
Eventually, Keen filed a motion for a partial summary judgment, 
seemingly aimed primarily at her declaratory-judgment claim.  But she 
did not argue in that motion that the undisputed facts demonstrated that 
the Allstate policy provided Creller with additional liability insurance 
coverage and that the parties to the settlement agreement and the 
release were unaware of that circumstance.  Instead, she argued the 
opposite -- that the Allstate policy did not provide coverage.  Thus, she 
asked for a judgment that would defeat her own claim seeking a 
judgment declaring that the settlement agreement and the release were 
void because of a mutual mistake regarding the availability of additional 
insurance coverage.  Because an order granting Keen's motion would 
result in the dismissal of her claims against Creller and Alfa, those 
parties joined in the motion.  For its part, Progressive opposed Keen's 
motion, because the availability of benefits under the Allstate policy 
might affect Progressive's interests with respect to Keen's underinsured-
motorist claim.  The trial court granted Keen's motion and certified its 
order as final pursuant to Rule 54(b).  Progressive appealed.2 
 
2Progressive did not designate Creller and Alfa as appellees in its 
notice of appeal.  Rather, it identified only Keen as the appellee.  Rule 
3(c), Ala. R. App. P., requires an appellant to designate "each adverse 
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Progressive argues initially that the trial court could not consider 
Keen's partial summary-judgment motion because, under Rule 56(a), 
Ala. R. Civ. P., Keen could seek a summary judgment in her favor only 
on a claim she had raised.  According to Progressive, Keen did not plead 
a claim requesting that the trial court enter a judgment declaring that 
the Allstate policy did not provide coverage with respect to her accident 
with Creller.  Also, as Progressive suggests, Keen's motion essentially 
requested that the trial court enter a summary judgment against Keen 
on her declaratory-judgment claim (as well as her negligence and 
wantonness claims against Creller, see note 1, supra).   
However, as noted, Creller and Alfa expressly joined in Keen's 
motion, thus effectively making it their own.  Assuming Keen did not 
 
party against whom the appeal is taken" and to "designate the judgment 
… appealed from."  But that rule also provides that "such designation … 
shall not … limit the scope of appellate review."  Creller and Alfa joined 
Keen's motion for a partial summary judgment, and the trial court 
entered only one order granting that motion, expressly noting that 
Creller and Alfa had joined in the motion.  Likewise, Creller and Alfa 
joined in Keen's appellee brief to this Court and asserted therein that 
Progressive's failure to designate them as appellees was "incorrect" and 
that they "should be additional Appellees on appeal and have joined in 
[the appellee] brief as such."  Progressive has not disputed that Creller 
and Alfa should be considered appellees.  Based on all the circumstances, 
we treat them as such.   
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have the right to make the motion, we are of the opinion that Creller and 
Alfa did.  Keen's amended complaint sought to avoid the effect of a 
settlement agreement and a release she had executed in favor of Creller 
and Alfa based on the factual assertion that the parties thereto were 
unaware that the Allstate policy would provide additional insurance 
coverage.  In defense of that claim, Creller and Alfa had the right to 
assert, as a basis for a summary judgment in their favor, that no such 
mistake existed because the Allstate policy did not in fact provide 
coverage.3 
Progressive argues alternatively that a genuine issue of material 
fact exists with respect to whether insurance coverage would be available 
pursuant to the Allstate policy.  See Varden Cap. Props., LLC v. Reese, 
329 So. 3d 1230, 1232 (Ala. 2020) (noting that, in reviewing a summary 
judgment, "appellate courts … view the evidence in a light most favorable 
to the nonmovant and … determine whether there is substantial evidence 
demonstrating a genuine issue of material fact").   
 
3The Court notes that there has been no argument that Progressive 
did not have the right to appeal from what is essentially a summary 
judgment against Keen on her claims against Creller and Alfa. 
SC-2022-0466 
7 
 
The parties grapple over the legal effect of the language in the 
Allstate policy.  They appear to be in agreement that the Allstate policy 
would provide coverage if the vehicle Creller was driving at the time of 
the accident was a "non-owned" vehicle as that term is used in the policy.  
One provision of the policy defines a non-owned vehicle as one that is 
being driven by the insured but is not owned by the insured or a "resident 
relative" of the insured.  As noted, the evidence before the trial court 
suggests that Creller lives with his parents and was driving their vehicle 
at the time of the accident.  Thus, Keen, Creller, and Alfa assert that 
Creller was driving a vehicle owned by a resident relative and therefore 
was not driving a non-owned vehicle.  For its part, Progressive relies on 
a different portion of the Allstate policy, which defines a "non-owned" 
vehicle as one that is owned by a resident relative and being driven by 
the insured if the vehicle is not owned by the insured or furnished for the 
insured's regular use.  Apparently, however, Progressive did not rely on 
that portion of the policy in opposing the partial-summary-judgment 
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motion in the trial court.  Thus, Keen, Creller, and Alfa assert that 
Progressive cannot rely on it on appeal.4 
In any event, as Progressive points out, requests for admissions 
answered by Creller indicate that he was covered by the Allstate policy 
at the time of the accident and that Allstate had not refused to provide 
benefits under that policy.  Thus, regardless of the parties' views on how 
the Allstate policy should be construed and applied, we cannot say that 
Keen, Creller, and Alfa established in their motion for a partial summary 
judgment that, based on the evidence presented to the trial court along 
with that motion, the undisputed facts demonstrate that there will in fact 
be no coverage available under the Allstate policy.5 
 
4Keen, Creller, and Alfa also argue that the evidence demonstrates 
that the vehicle Creller was driving at the time of the accident was 
available for his regular use and, therefore, was not a non-owned vehicle 
even under the definition in the Allstate policy upon which Progressive 
relies. 
 
5Keen, Creller, and Alfa claim that, after this appeal was 
commenced, Allstate issued a reservation-of-rights letter to Creller, 
which is "[a] notice of an insurer's intention not to waive its contractual 
rights to contest coverage or to apply an exclusion that negates an 
insured's claim."  Black's Law Dictionary 1564 (11th ed. 2019).  According 
to Progressive, however, the letter "fails to indicate that coverage is 
denied under the logic of [Keen's] argument."  The letter is not in the 
appellate record and was not before the trial court when it entered the 
partial summary judgment under review.  Accordingly, this Court cannot 
SC-2022-0466 
9 
 
Because it appears that a question of fact based on the evidence 
before the trial court existed when it entered the partial summary 
judgment, we reverse that judgment and remand the case for further 
proceedings.6 
 
REVERSED AND REMANDED. 
 
Parker, C.J., and Bolin, Wise, and Stewart, JJ., concur. 
 
consider it.  Roberts v. NASCO Equip. Co., 986 So. 2d 379, 385 (Ala. 2007) 
(indicating that the Court will not consider evidence that is not in the 
appellate record and that appellate review is limited to evidence and 
arguments considered by the trial court). 
 
6We note that Allstate has not been made a party to this action.  
The parties do not discuss the implications of that fact.