Opinion ID: 77495
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: A.2.a.

Text: 3 Tampa, Florida from June 12, 1986, until his death on December 2, 1995, and that Garrison resided in the same nursing home from October 16, 1993, to November 15, 1997. The operative complaint in the Underlying Action (the Underlying Complaint) broadly charged that: (1) Beaver and Brian Center Defendants breached fiduciary duties owed to the nursing home residents by failing to provide necessary care, services, and supplies required for their health and well-being; (2) LCA Defendants, after merging with Brian Center Defendants in March 1995, also breached their fiduciary duties to the residents; and (3) Beaver as officer and director of the nursing home corporations, assumed duties to provide residents with adequate care and services, and negligently breached those duties in causing Garrison bodily injury. Hartford accordingly assumed the defense of the Underlying Action but reserved its right to contest coverage. Hartford then commenced this action on July 2, 1999, in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida, seeking a declaratory judgment that there was no coverage or duty to defend the Underlying Action. After some delays caused by bankruptcy proceedings, on January 20, 2004, Hartford moved for summary judgment. Then, on August 3, 2004, Hartford informed the district court that Ayres had settled and was withdrawing as a plaintiff in the Underlying Action. The case proceeded with 4 Garrison as the sole named plaintiff. The district court granted Hartford's motion for summary judgment, ruling that the Underlying Complaint did not trigger a duty to defend because the facts in the complaint, on their face, fail to bring Ms. Garrison's claims within coverage of [Hartford's] policy. Hartford later moved for clarification, asking whether the district court meant that Hartford did not have a duty to defend the Underlying Action based on claims by putative class members rather than by Ms. Garrison. On June 2, 2005, the district court granted Hartford's motion for clarification, concluding that Hartford did not have a duty to defend the Underlying Action. The district court noted the absence of controlling Florida precedent, but held that Hartford does not have a duty to defend against the class action allegations contained in the state court complaint until such time as that class is certified pursuant to Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 1.220. The plain language of Rule 1.220 strongly suggests that a class must be certified before a claim may be maintained on its behalf. Without class certification, there is no class action claim to defend against. The Court is also persuaded by the reasoning of the federal cases holding that the claims of potential class members cannot be aggregated to satisfy the amount in controversy requirement. For example, the Ninth Circuit in Gibson v. Chrysler Corp., 261 F.3d 927, 940 (9th Cir. 2001), noted that a class action, when filed, includes only the claims of the named plaintiff or plaintiffs. The claims of unnamed class members are added to the action later, when the action is certified as a class under Rule 23. 5 Beaver, alone among the Defendants, filed this appeal from the district court's ruling.