Opinion ID: 1901355
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: whether wells's and oliver's claims are barred by the filed rate doctrine.

Text: ¶ 23. Fidelity and American Bankers next argue that the allegations in Wells's and Oliver's complaints are barred by the filed rate doctrine. Under the filed rate doctrine, any filed ratethat is, a rate approved by the governing regulatory agencyis per se reasonable and unassailable in judicial proceedings brought by ratepayers. Wegoland Ltd. v. NYNEX Corp., 27 F.3d 17, 18 (2d Cir.1994); United Gas Pipe Line Co. v. Willmut Gas & Oil Co., 231 Miss. 700, 718, 97 So.2d 530, 535 (1957) (petitioner can claim no rate as a legal right that is other than the filed rate, whether fixed or merely accepted by the Commission, and not even a court can authorize commerce in the commodity on other terms) (quoting Montana-Dakota Utils. Co. v. Northwestern Pub. Serv. Comm'n, 341 U.S. 246, 251, 71 S.Ct. 692, 695, 95 L.Ed. 912 (1951)). ¶ 24. The filed rate doctrine is based upon sound considerations of law and judicial policy. A civil juror, who likely has little, if any, expertise in the area of insurance rates and policies, should not be permitted to reject and thereupon impose liability based on the rates of a policy which was expressly approved by the Department of Insurance. See Miss.Code Ann. §§ 83-1-1 et seq. (1999). Permitting a jury to impose liability in such circumstances would result in a judicial infringement upon the duties and responsibilities which are expressly delegated by the Legislature to the Department of Insurance. Id. ¶ 25. A plaintiff might have a valid cause of action against his lender for a breach of the duty of good faith and fair dealing if it could be shown that the lender engaged in bad faith conduct in the performance of a contract approved by the Department of Insurance, rather than in the actual rates of such a policy. However, one of the central allegations of this action is that Fidelity obtained a CPI policy under which the rates were too high and the provisions were slanted in favor of Fidelity. Clearly, Wells and Oliver would have claimed less damages if the CPI policy contained lower rates, but the Department of Insurance, in the exercise of its discretion, opted to approve the rates and policy in question. ¶ 26. Wells and Oliver allege that the actual monetary damages were $2,700 for Oliver and $350 for Wells. These sums coincidentally closely parallel the rates charged for the CPI policies in question. They further allege that there is nothing in the loan documents which would have in any way alerted either of them to the fact that the premiums charged for the insurance coverage force placed by American Bankers and Fidelity were excessive, and that they exceeded their own filed rates. The complaints therefore clearly contain claims that the rates in the CPI policy approved by the Insurance Department were excessive. ¶ 27. At the same time, the complaints do contain some allegations which arguably fall outside of the scope of the filed rate doctrine, including the claims that Fidelity and American Bankers should be held liable for: (A) Illegally backdating worthless insurance coverage on Fidelity borrowers for the sole purpose of garnering extra unearned premiums for up to six months during which time Fidelity could never have filed a claim under the policies force placed on the Wells and Oliver loans because their vehicles were never damaged or repossessed (conditions precedent to a claim being made by Fidelity). (B) Charging Fidelity customers insurance premiums based upon the gross amount of the loan (gross balance) as opposed to the net payoff of the loan on the date of force placement or the actual cash value of the vehicle (net balance) when the American Bankers policy would never pay more than the net balance of the loan thereby allowing American Bankers and Fidelity to charge premiums for phantom coverage. (C) Requiring that the borrowers' vehicles (which served as collateral for the Fidelity loans) be repossessed before the vehicle could be repaired and before a claim could even be made. Moreover, the customer could never get the car back after it was repossessed. (D) Committing fraud in connection with their own filed rates and/or exceeding what was allowed to be charged under their own filed rates by: 1. Basing premiums on eighteen months rather than twelve months in order to charge additional premiums; and 2. By adding a forty-five percent surcharge to premiums when their own actuary stated that this charge was not based upon any objective underwriting criteria. ¶ 28. Although some jurisdictions have recognized exceptions to the filed rate doctrine, the acceptance of the doctrine's basic applicability is near-universal. At the same time, Wells and Oliver do make allegations which are arguably outside of the scope of the filed rate doctrine. ¶ 29. We remand this case to the trial court for a new trial with directions that Wells and Oliver be limited to recovery for damages (if any) resulting from tortious conduct in the performance, rather than the rates and terms, of the contract in question. [2] The trial judge should also be careful, however, to prevent the jury from imposing liability based upon the rates of the policies in question which are subject to oversight by the Department of Insurance in the exercise of its statutory mandate. We are required to give judicial deference to the jurisdiction and authority granted to a governmental agency by the Legislature.