Opinion ID: 1901355
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: whether fidelity or american bankers may be held liable for a breach of fiduciary duty.

Text: ¶ 30. Fidelity and American Bankers next argue that the trial court erred in refusing to enter a directed verdict on Wells's and Oliver's claims of breach of fiduciary duty. We find that a fiduciary relationship between a lender and a borrower does not arise when the lender breaches the lending contract. Indeed, in General Motors Acceptance Corp. v. Baymon, 732 So.2d 262 (Miss.1999), we rejected arguments that a lender who had obtained CPI under circumstances similar to those in the present case owed a fiduciary duty to the borrower. We held: Baymon is unable to demonstrate that her relationship with GMAC was fiduciary in nature. There is no evidence in the record that GMAC created an expectation in Baymon that it would protect her interests, nor that she was lulled into a false sense of security by relying on GMAC. Indeed, GMAC's repeated warnings that CPI might not fully protect Baymon's interests clearly prevented any fiduciary expectations on her part. As a result, this Court finds that no fiduciary relationship existed between GMAC and Baymon. Id. at 270. Based on Baymon, there is no basis on which we might hold that Fidelity owed Wells or Oliver a fiduciary duty. ¶ 31. There is even less reason to conclude that American Bankers might owe a fiduciary duty to Fidelity's borrowers. American Bankers had no contractual relationship with Fidelity's borrowers, and the American Bankers CPI policy in question served only to protect Fidelity's interest in the collateral. Wells and Oliver cite no authority holding that a collateral protection insurer owes a fiduciary duty to borrowers with whom it has no contractual relationship; therefore, they failed to establish a cause of action against American Bankers for breach of fiduciary duty.