Opinion ID: 731288
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: CKCU's signature on the 1987 bylaw amendment

Text: 67 CKCU points to a provision in its contract of insurance with Mutual Guaranty that incorporates the terms of the 1982 merger agreement between Mutual Guaranty and Secured Savings to the extent applicable to [CKCU]. Aplt's App. vol. I, at 61. The 1982 agreement requires a signed writing by the parties in order to amend the agreement in any manner affecting the rights and responsibilities of the parties. CKCU thus presents a tortured argument that its signature is required on any bylaw amendment that affects its rights. 68 The district court cited several reasons for rejecting this argument. Applying de novo review to the district court's interpretation of the insurance contract, Federal Kemper Life Assurance Co. v. Ellis, 28 F.3d 1033, 1038 (10th Cir.1994), we conclude that the signature provision in the merger agreement should not be incorporated into CKCU's insurance contract. The insurance contract calls for incorporation of the terms of the merger agreement to the extent applicable to [CKCU]. Aplt's App. vol. I, at 61. The district court correctly concluded that this standard clause in the merger agreement was not in any way applicable to CKCU. Mutual Guaranty argues that the parties' intent was only to incorporate into the insurance contract a particular provision in the merger agreement, which relates to CKCU's separately negotiated liability for obligations SSCU owed to financially troubled member credit unions. We think this reading is far more plausible than CKCU's construction. The insurance contract expressly provides that it may be amended by an amendment to the bylaws of Mutual Guaranty, provided only that Mutual Guaranty give notice of amendments to CKCU. If the parties had intended that all amendments must also be signed by CKCU, they could have so stated in the contract. Moreover, reading such a requirement into the insurance contract would render the notice provision meaningless. We decline to read such a requirement into the contract of insurance. In deciding to press this argument on appeal, CKCU would have done well to observe that [l]egal contentions, like the currency, depreciate through overissue. Jones v. Barnes, 463 U.S. 745, 752, 103 S.Ct. 3308, 3313, 77 L.Ed.2d 987 (1983). This one should have been weeded out.