Opinion ID: 1360551
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Rulings Regarding Interpretation of the Insurance Policy

Text: The central issue in this case is whether the Company's new approach to reimbursements is permissible under the language of the policy. It is not surprising, then, that this issue is the primary motivator for the Company's request for mandamus relief. The Company complains about the manner in which the district court has gone about interpreting the policy. We set forth the facts relevant to this issue below. The Company responded to Gooch's complaint by moving to dismiss [3] on the basis that the four corners of the insurance policy precluded Gooch's claim. Gooch responded and also cross-moved for partial summary judgment on the interpretation of the policy, for a preliminary injunction requiring the Company to continue reimbursing him under the old process, and for class certification. Gooch submitted a significant amount of evidence in support of these motions. The Company argued that Gooch's motions were premature, and the district court agreed. It stayed discovery for the most part, subject to reopening if the court found that it needed evidence to rule on the meaning of the policy. The court further ordered that, if it denied the motion to dismiss, the Company's responses to Gooch's motions would be due 150 days after the court ruled on the motion to dismiss. We presume that this 150-day window was to allow the parties to conduct the discovery necessary to complete the briefing on Gooch's motions. Relatively little occurred over the next seven months while the district court considered the Company's motion to dismiss. Then, on March 6, 2008, the court issued a ruling on several of the outstanding motions, including Gooch's class certification, partial summary judgment, and preliminary injunction motions that it had previously indicated were stayed. The upshot of this combined ruling was that the district court agreed with Gooch's interpretation of the insurance policy. Importantly, the court partially relied upon matters outside of the pleadings and the four corners of the policythe evidence submitted by Goochin coming to its conclusions, without having permitted the Company an opportunity to take discovery or offer any contradictory evidence. [4] The court therefore denied the Company's motion to dismiss, granted partial summary judgment in favor of Gooch, and entered a preliminary injunction requiring the Company to reimburse Gooch under its prior procedures. The court also certified the class that Gooch sought to represent. The Company reacted defensively. It quickly moved, on March 18th, to set aside the class certification [5] and, on March 20th, to set aside the partial summary judgment. Approximately one month later, on April 11th, the court held a status conference. During that conference, the court, for reasons that are not apparent from the record, stayed all discovery indefinitely and vacated all pending deadlines. In February 2009, approximately ten months after the April 11, 2008 status conference, the court entered an order vacating the partial summary judgment that it had entered for Gooch approximately one year earlier and that the Company had sought to vacate eleven months earlier. Nevertheless, approximately one month later, during a March 2009 status conference, the court announced that, although it had vacated the partial summary judgment to Gooch on the interpretation of the policy (which it had arrived at by relying, at least in part, on evidence submitted by Gooch without the Company having had the opportunity to submit rebutting evidence), it intended to treat its interpretation of the policy as the law of the case. It is in light of this fact pattern that the Company makes its first and most vehement request for mandamus relief. It is clear from the Company's submissions on appeal that it is highly frustrated with the manner in which the district court has managed this case. We do not find the Company's frustration altogether unreasonable, although our review of the record from the district court leads us to believe that the Company itself is not completely innocent with regard to the disjointed manner in which this case has progressed. But, in any event, frustration with the manner in which a district court is managing a case is not grounds for mandamus relief. Essentially, we are presented with (1) a premature entry of summary judgment that has now been mooted by a subsequent vacation of that summary judgment and (2) a court that indicates that it nevertheless intends to treat the substance of that mooted order, i.e. its reading of the insurance policy, as law of the case. As to the first situation, the entry of partial summary judgment, mandamus relief is clearly inappropriate as the district court corrected its own error. Thus, we are left with the question whether the court's indication that it intends to treat its interpretation of the insurance policy as law of the case amounts to the wholesale judicial usurpation of power necessary to invoke our mandamus jurisdiction. In re Prof'ls Direct Ins. Co., 578 F.3d at 437 (citing Will v. United States, 389 U.S. 90, 95, 88 S.Ct. 269, 19 L.Ed.2d 305 (1967)). Based on our review of the record, we do not interpret the district court's statement as invoking the formal law of the case doctrine. [6] Instead, we interpret it as being a sort of shorthand legal slang to signal that the court simply does not intend to revisit the issue of contract interpretation. When viewed in this light, we do not believe that mandamus relief is warranted. Even accepting the Company's position that the court's interpretation of the policy is incorrect (a matter on which we offer no opinion), all we would have before us is an incorrect interlocutory ruling by the district court. Stated differently, the most that could be claimed is that the district court erred on a matter within its jurisdiction, In re Prof'ls Direct Ins. Co., 578 F.3d at 437 (citing Schlagenhauf v. Holder, 379 U.S. 104, 112, 85 S.Ct. 234, 13 L.Ed.2d 152 (1964)), which is not a sufficient predicate for mandamus relief. Turning to the five mandamus factors set forth by our prior cases, allegedly incorrect interlocutory rulings are common on direct appeal in civil cases e.g., the court denies a motion to dismiss, the case goes to trial and results in a verdict, then we determine on direct appeal that the complaint indeed failed to state a claim and thus the district court incorrectly denied the motion to dismiss. Thus, under the first and second of the five mandamus factors, the relief sought by the Company is clearly available on direct appeal. Even more compelling, however, is the third mandamus factor, which asks whether the district court's order is clearly incorrect as a matter of law. First, there is currently no incorrect order to speak of, as the court vacated the partial summary judgment. Instead, the most we have is an allegedly incorrect interpretation of the policy, set forth in a now mooted order, and an indication that the court is not inclined to change its mind. And second, given the unsettled state of the pleadings and discovery, we cannot determine whether the district court's interpretation of the policy is correct or incorrect. It therefore follows that it is not currently clear that the court's interpretation is incorrect as a matter of law. In sum, because the first three mandamus factors all cut strongly against issuing mandamus relief on the issue of policy interpretation, we decline the Company's request.