Opinion ID: 10021
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Post-Certification

Text: Soon after the amendments were enacted, and “[w]ith the benefit of th[e Louisiana Supreme Court's] [pre-amendment] resolution of our certified question,”12 we again considered the consolidated appeals. LIGA argued that we should reject the preamendment result reached by the Louisiana Supreme Court on certification and instead retroactively apply the supervening amendments to the IGAL, thereby releasing LIGA from any responsibility to assume the WC/EL policies involved in the consolidated cases. We rejected LIGA's recommended approach, however, as we “s[aw] no reason” to depart from the general rule that a state court's answer to a certified question is “final and binding upon the parties between whom the issue arose . . . [and thus] generally . . . the 'law of the case' in any further federal court proceeding involving those parties.”13 In particular, we “question[ed] whether the Louisiana Supreme Court would conclude that the recent legislation overruled its decision in Deshotels.”14 11 See LA. REV. STAT. ANN. § 22:1379 (West 1990). 12 Sifers v. Gen. Marine Catering Co., 892 F.2d 386, 389 (5th Cir. 1990) [hereinafter Sifers]. 13 Id. at 391. 14 Id. at 392. 7 Having determined that the Deshotels decision governed all of the consolidated appeals, we held that LIGA was required to reinsure the claims arising from the standard workers' compensation policies involved in the cases. We also addressed the issue of LIGA's obligation to pay the attorneys' fees and other costs of litigation incurred by the insured employers. First, we held that an insured could not recover attorneys' fees and costs incurred in the successful prosecution of a claim against LIGA unless on remand the district court found that LIGA had acted “arbitrarily, capriciously, or without probable cause.”15 In addition, we concluded that LIGA could not be held liable for fees and costs incurred by an insured such as Sealift in the defense of claims brought by plaintiffs such as the Blairs if by statute those claims are excluded from LIGA's reinsurance obligations.16 We then remanded each individual case to the district courts in which it had arisen for further proceedings consistent with our opinion.