Opinion ID: 2755041
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Did DISH I decide the duty-to-defend issue?

Text: We turn first to the question of whether the district court violated the lawof-the-case doctrine by allowing the Insurers to present additional arguments regarding why they were not obligated to defend Dish in the underlying RAKTL action. According to Dish, “this Court decided the duty to defend issue” in DISH I. Aplt. Br. at 14. Indeed, Dish asserts, “[i]n seeking rehearing en banc, the Insurers argued that this Court’s decision [in DISH I] required them to defend D[ish].” Id. at 8-9. We reject Dish’s assertion that DISH I resolved the duty-to-defend issue. The concluding section of DISH I stated, in pertinent part: “As regards the duty to defend, we hold that the RAKTL complaint may arguably fall within the polic[ies] at issue because it potentially alleged advertising injury arising from Dish’s misappropriation of its advertising ideas, which Dish committed in the course of advertising its goods, products, or services.” Id. at 1028 (emphasis added) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). We further noted that “[s]everal issues the district court did not address [in its summary judgment order] remain[ed] to be resolved” regarding the Insurers’ duty to defend. Id. Thus, in sum, DISH I did not resolve the duty-to-defend issue. Consequently, the law-of-the-case doctrine did not prohibit the district court from resolving the duty-to-defend issue on other grounds. 14 To the extent it is relevant, we also reject Dish’s assertion that the Insurers conceded in their petition for rehearing en banc that they were obligated to defend Dish in the RAKTL action. In their petition for rehearing en banc, the Insurers argued, in part, that DISH I’s “analysis led [this court] to mistakenly equate the use of a patented product capable of being used to advertise with ‘misappropriation of an advertising idea’ so as to bring the former within the ‘advertising injury’ coverage afforded by CGL policies, even though ‘patent infringement’ is not a listed offense to which coverage extends.” App. at 1900 (emphasis in original). The Insurers in turn argued that “[t]he existence of ‘advertising injury’ coverage for patent infringement under commercial general liability (‘CGL’) insurance is a question of exceptional importance.” Id. And, they argued, “[t]his decision requires Insurers, and will require other insurers in the future, to defend and potentially to indemnify insureds for ‘patent infringement’ claims that are not covered by CGL insurance.” Id. Although Dish now argues that this last sentence was a concession by the Insurers that they were obligated to defend Dish in the RAKTL action, we conclude that is an overly broad reading of the sentence. Quite clearly, the Insurers were taking issue with the general notion that “advertising injury” coverage under CGL policies could conceivably provide coverage for patent infringement. But, as we see it, the Insurers were not conclusively conceding that they were obligated to defend Dish in the RAKTL action. 15 2. Did the mandate rule effectively prohibit the district court’s actions? We next turn to the question of whether the district court violated the mandate rule by allowing the Insurers to file new motions for summary judgment raising additional policy-based challenges to Dish’s claim that the Insurers were obligated to defend Dish in the RAKTL action. To decide that question, we “must look to the mandate in [DISH I] to determine whether it specifically limit[ed] the scope of remand so as to prevent the district court from considering” the Insurer’s additional arguments regarding the duty to defend. West, 646 F.3d at 749 (internal quotation marks omitted). The remand language in DISH I stated as follows: We REVERSE the district court’s grant of summary judgment to the Insurers and REMAND for further proceedings. While we agree with the district court’s conclusion that patent infringement may, under certain circumstances, constitute “misappropriation of advertising ideas,” we disagree with its ruling that the patented means of conveying advertising content at issue here could not be “advertising ideas” within the meaning of Dish’s commercial general liability policies. As regards the duty to defend, we hold that the RAKTL complaint “may arguably fall within the polic[ies]” at issue, Cyprus [Amax Minerals Co. v. Lexington Ins. Co.], 74 P.3d [294,] 299 [(Colo. 2003)], because it potentially alleged advertising injury arising from Dish’s misappropriation of its advertising ideas, which Dish committed in the course of advertising its goods, products, or services, Novell[, Inc. v. Federal Ins. Co.], 141 F.3d [983,] 986 [(10th Cir. 1998)]. Several issues the district court did not address remain to be resolved. In their response brief, Insurers raise arguments regarding unique language in the policies issued by Arch and National Union; specifically, they argue that Arch’s intellectual property exclusion and National Union’s sole causation requirement bar coverage. Ins. 16 Resp. Br. at 66–70. The excess insurers, Arch, National Union, and XL, also contend that they have no duty to defend in the absence of a showing that Dish’s primary policy coverage has been exhausted. Id. at 70. The district court did not reach these arguments, as it decided the case in favor of Insurers on other grounds. Dish, 734 F.Supp.2d at 1185 n. 20. We express no view as to the merits of those arguments, but instead REMAND for the district court to address them in the first instance. Accordingly, we also DENY as moot Arch and National Union’s motion to strike portions of Dish’s reply brief or for leave to file a surreply regarding these issues. DISH I, 659 F.3d at 1028-29. To be sure, this remand language acknowledged the possibility that the RAKTL complaint might fall within the policies at issue, and unequivocally directed the district court “to address . . . in the first instance” the additional arguments that were asserted by the Insurers in their original summary judgment motions but not resolved by the district court in granting those motions. But Dish misreads this language as limiting the district court from considering other arguments the Insurers might have regarding the duty to defend. Although the Insurers, in their respective answers to Dish’s complaint, asserted a host of defenses to the purported duty to defend, they argued only a few of them in their initial motions for summary judgment (presumably believing that the “advertising injury” argument in particular would prevail). And, because the appeal in DISH I concerned the district court’s decision to grant the Insurers’ motions for summary judgment, our decision in DISH I understandably addressed the specific arguments contained in those motions and did not cast about the district court 17 record for other potential defenses. The important point is that nothing in the remand language in DISH I specifically limited or prevented the district court from allowing the Insurers to dispute the purported duty to defend on grounds other than those that were asserted in the Insurers’ original motions for summary judgment. As a result, the district court did not violate the mandate rule by allowing the Insurers to file new motions for summary judgment raising additional defenses to the purported duty to defend.