United States Court of Appeals 

For the First Circuit 

No. 19-1719 

ALTHEA JOHNSON, individually and as Heir and Natural Guardian of 

Carlton Johnson; CARLTON JOHNSON, 

Plaintiffs, Appellants, 

v. 

HORACE JOHNSON; STATE ROAD AUTO SALES, INC.; 

ARBELLA MUTUAL INSURANCE COMPANY, 

Defendants, Appellees. 

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

FOR THE DISTRICT OF RHODE ISLAND 

[Hon. John J. McConnell, Jr., U.S. District Judge] 

Before 

Thompson, Stahl, and Barron, 

Circuit Judges. 

Ronald J. Resmini, with whom Law Offices of Ronald J. Resmini, 

Ltd. was on brief, for appellants. 

 Thomas A. Pursley, with whom Stephen E. Navega, II and Lynch 

& Lynch were on brief, for appellee Arbella Mutual Insurance. 

 Lisa De Mari, with whom Heffernan & De Mari, P.C. was on 

brief, for appellees Horace Johnson and State Road Auto Sales. 

March 13, 2020 
- 2 - 

Per Curiam. A car accident involving Horace Johnson 

("Horace"), who was the driver, and Horace's cousin, Carlton 

Johnson ("Carlton"), who was the sole passenger, is what led to 

this lawsuit, which was filed through Carlton's mother to recover 

damages for serious injuries Carlton sustained in the accident.1 

Deciding the appeal now before us will require us to resolve 

whether a settlement contract under Rhode Island law was formed 

and the potential applicability of a Rhode Island statute. These 

determinations rest on an important question of state law -- one 

which the Rhode Island Supreme Court has not yet had occasion to 

answer. 

So, "[b]ecause the Rhode Island Supreme Court is the 

ultimate arbiter of matters of Rhode Island law, we certify th[is] 

unsettled question[] to that court for guidance." W. Reserve Life 

Assur. Co. of Ohio v. ADM Assocs., LLC, 737 F.3d 135, 136 (1st 

Cir. 2013), certified question answered, 116 A.3d 794 (R.I. 2015); 

R.I. Sup. Ct. R. 6.2

 1 We note that Carlton's mother, Althea, sought to recover 

damages in her individual capacity via loss of consortium and 

intentional infliction of emotional distress claims, but the 

dismissal of those claims is not challenged on appeal. 

2 Rule 6(c) of the Rhode Island Supreme Court Rules of 

Appellate Procedure requires that the certifying court "set forth 

(1) the questions of law to be answered; and (2) a statement of 

all facts relevant to the questions certified and showing fully 

the nature of the controversy in which the questions arose." 
- 3 - 

I. Background 

On December 17, 2017, Horace, a Massachusetts resident, 

was driving in Providence, Rhode Island with Carlton, a Rhode 

Island resident then 28 years old, as Horace's passenger. The car 

struck a utility pole, and both Horace and Carlton were seriously 

injured. Horace was driving a car leased to him by State Road 

Auto Sales ("State Road"), and he was insured by Arbella Mutual 

Insurance Company ("Arbella") under an automobile insurance policy 

that provided a limit of $100,000 of bodily injury coverage for 

guest occupants injured in accidents outside Massachusetts.3 

Just over a month after the accident (January 25, 2018), 

Carlton's counsel sent a letter to Arbella demanding a settlement 

for his bodily injury claims at the $100,000 policy limit. In a 

letter dated February 28, 2018, Arbella sent a response to 

Carlton's counsel in which Arbella accepted Carlton's demand to 

settle for the policy limits of $100,000. 

Soon after, on March 6, 2018, Carlton and his mother 

filed a lawsuit in the Superior Court of Rhode Island against the 

appellees. Arbella removed the case to federal court. See 28 

U.S.C. §§ 1332, 1441. In time, the appellees moved for summary 

judgment, and the district court granted it. In so doing (as is 

relevant to our question-certification), the district court 

 3 We will sometimes refer to Horace, Arbella, and State Road 

collectively as "the appellees." 
- 4 - 

rejected Carlton's argument that Rhode Island's Rejected 

Settlement Offer Interest Statute, R.I.G.L. § 27-7-2.2, applied to 

the case and operated to render Arbella's acceptance of the 

settlement offer invalid because it occurred more than the 

statutorily prescribed thirty days after his settlement offer 

(under the statute, the "written offer shall be presumed to have 

been rejected if the insurer does not respond in writing within a 

period of thirty (30) days"). Rather, after careful consideration, 

the district court determined that the statute's "[i]n any civil 

action" language requires that a legal proceeding in court needs 

to be underway to trigger the statute's application. Accordingly, 

the district court concluded that since Carlton did not file suit 

until after the settlement-offer-and-acceptance episode, the 

statute did not apply, and the parties had otherwise entered into 

a valid settlement contract for policy limits, meaning Carlton's 

claims for bodily injury could not be brought in court. 

Carlton timely appealed the dismissal of two counts in 

his complaint, each of which rests on the premise that no valid 

settlement contract was formed: Count I seeks damages for 

Carlton's "severe personal injuries, which continue to date" 

causing "significant hospitalization, medical treatment, home 

health care, rehabilitation, lost wages, loss of consortium, 

permanent injuries, as well as loss of earning capacity"; and Count 

III claims that the appellees disregarded Rhode Island insurance 
- 5 - 

settlement law and violated and breached Massachusetts insurance 

settlement law. 

II. The Issues 

Much of the appeal now before us rests on the 

applicability of § 27-7-2.2. Let's break that down, starting with 

the full language of the statute: 

In any civil action in which the defendant is covered by 

liability insurance and in which the plaintiff makes a 

written offer to the defendant's insurer to settle the 

action in an amount equal to or less than the coverage 

limits on the liability policy in force at the time the 

action accrues, and the offer is rejected by the 

defendant's insurer, then the defendant's insurer shall 

be liable for all interest due on the judgment entered 

by the court even if the payment of the judgment and 

interest totals a sum in excess of the policy coverage 

limitation. This written offer shall be presumed to 

have been rejected if the insurer does not respond in 

writing within a period of thirty (30) days.

Before us, Carlton rehashes his argument below in 

insisting that, contrary to the district court's conclusion, the 

parties never entered into a valid settlement contract: § 27-7-

2.2 applies, and it renders the settlement contract unenforceable 

because Arbella failed to accept his settlement offer within the 

thirty-day window the statute lays out. To his thinking, the 

statute applies even though he hadn't filed a complaint yet because 

"'any civil action' means from the time a torts or contracts-based 

cause of action begins to accrue" (he did not propose this 

definition before the district court). Further, he says that the 

Rhode Island Supreme Court's jurisprudence has assumed 
- 6 - 

applicability of the statute to matters like his, i.e. fact 

patterns involving a pre-suit settlement offer, followed by an 

insurer's failure to respond in writing within the thirty-day 

window. See, e.g., Summit Ins. Co. v. Stricklett, 199 A.3d 523 

(R.I. 2019); DeMarco v. Travelers Ins. Co., 26 A.3d 585 (R.I. 

2011).

The appellees respond by arguing that the district court 

was correct to conclude that the statute is inapplicable: it 

requires a civil action be underway, and because no lawsuit had 

been filed at the time the parties' settlement correspondence was 

playing out, Arbella simply was not bound by the statute's thirtyday deadline. To the appellees, this means the offer and Arbella's 

acceptance were valid under Rhode Island law, and the enforceable 

settlement agreement that resulted categorically bars Carlton from 

pursuing his claims in court. 

Clearly, whether Carlton's case can succeed hinges on 

whether § 27-7-2.2 applies to his case. In order to perform that 

analysis, however, we need to pin down the meaning of "[i]n any 

civil action" as it appears in § 27-7-2.2. The Rhode Island 

Supreme Court has not yet provided a definition of "civil action" 

as it relates to the statute, but it is precisely this definition 

that will determine whether the statute applies to Carlton's case. 

And while we are aware of the considerations and tools at our 

disposal to decide upon a definition for ourselves, we think it 
- 7 - 

more prudent to afford the Rhode Island Supreme Court the 

opportunity to lay out its controlling take on this matter of state 

law. This is particularly so because of Rhode Island case law 

that involves § 27-7-2.2 in cases that also had their genesis in 

pre-suit settlement negotiations. See, e.g., Stricklett, 199 A.3d 

at 527, 533; DeMarco, 26 A.3d at 617. 

III. Certification

In light of the foregoing, we certify to the Rhode Island 

Supreme Court the following question: 

(1) What is the definition of "civil action" in R.I.G.L. 

§ 27-7-2.2? 

We would welcome further guidance from the Rhode Island 

Supreme Court on any other relevant aspect of Rhode Island law 

that it believes would aid in the proper resolution of the issues 

pending in this matter. 

The clerk of this Court is directed to forward to the 

Rhode Island Supreme Court, under the official seal of this Court, 

a copy of the certified question, this opinion, the district 

court's opinion, and the merits briefs and appendices filed by the 

parties. We retain jurisdiction over this issue pending resolution 

of this certified question.