Opinion ID: 774046
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Entry of Final Judgment

Text: 30 After summary judgment on the indemnification and allocation issues had been entered, the district court held a status conference in May 1999 with the parties in order to identify remaining issues. The parties apparently disagreed about how to assess prejudgment interest and to what extent fees should be shifted from one side to the other. Briefs were requested and filed on these matters and, accompanying its brief, Owens Corning made a motion for final judgment. This motion does not indicate under what rule Owens Corning was proceeding (and the district court did not clarify the matter). Fed. R. Civ. P. 54(b) may be used by litigants for entry of final judgment on decided claims when not all claims in the case have been decided. Owens Corning's motion was, by contrast, based on the premise that there were no more issues to be litigated between the parties. The motion therefore falls more closely within the ambit of Fed. R. Civ. P. 58, which normally operates as a matter of course if a case is indeed over. See Stearns v. NCR Corp., 195 F.R.D. 652, 653 (D. Minn. 2000) (adjudicating request for entry of final judgment . . . pursuant to Rule 58 . . . effectively seeking a determination by the Court that there are no further issues to be resolved in this case). 31 National Union resisted the motion for entry of final judgment. In doing so, it raised a new ground to defend against paying pursuant to the Policy, claiming that the Lavalle settlement was not shown to have been reasonable. It claimed, and reasserts on appeal, that reasonableness of both the settlement amount and defense costs are prerequisite to a claim on the Policy, although the specific contractual or legal foundation for this claim is not explicated. 9 In essence this appears to be largely an attempt at further amendment of the pleadings, under another name, as this issue had appeared in only the most cursory manner in the defendant's Answer or other pleadings. 10 32 The district court addressed the reasonableness question on the merits. Assuming our standard of review on this question is for abuse of discretion, we find the court to have given a reasoned opinion with no clearly erroneous findings of fact. The court found that National Union had been aware of the Lavalle settlement, which was approved by Judge Carr in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, and never to have objected. National Union points out that as a non-party, it could not have stopped the settlement. However, it appears never to have objected at all, even to the insured - perhaps believing this lack of involvement might assist an attempt at complete disclaimer. 33 More importantly for our purposes, National Union has slept on this defense over the long course of this case. The insurer's new arguments appeared only after other defenses to payment had crumbled. Like the defenses National Union didraise earlier, based on the asbestos exclusion, settlement allocation, or unlawful indemnification, a defense based on unreasonableness of the underlying settlement would find its ground in the actual terms of the D & O policy, the sequence of events that occurred, and the governing law. National Union gives no plausible reason why this defense was not briefed or adjudicated along with its other defenses. If issues remain in a case, a motion for entry of final judgment must satisfy the strictures of Rule 54(b), and the court made no such findings. However, under the facts of this case, the reasonableness of the Lavalle settlement was not an issue in this declaratory judgment action and National Union's belated demands for proof of reasonableness did not make it one. At the very least, the posture in which this matter arose placed a burden on National Union to show that the reasonableness of the settlement was a genuine concern, sufficient to forestall the impending summary judgment for the plaintiff. The district court was therefore proper in not considering this issue as a matter barring entry of final judgment. III 34 For the foregoing reasons, we AFFIRM the district court on all grounds asserted by the appellant.