Court Opinion

ID: 9727708
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 13:48:30.878426+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:41.869560
License: Public Domain

ALEXANDER, J.,
with whom RUDMAN, J., joins, dissenting.
[¶ 17] I respectfully dissent. The question posed to us by the Federal Court is equivalent to asking a damages question before liability has been decided. The legal question may be interesting, but the liability ruling may render it irrelevant to the case at hand. We are not obligated to answer every interesting question of Maine law that litigants raise in Federal cases. We should be particularly cautious about doing so when our answer would establish a major new policy governing interpretation of residential leases in a case where the facts and the terms of the lease may make any answer we give superfluous.
[¶ 18] Our authority to respond to questions from the Federal Courts is strictly limited by statute and-our own precedents. Thus, our jurisdictional statute, 4 M.R.S.A. *405§ 57 (Supp.2001), limits our authority to answering “questions of state law” that in the Federal Court’s view “may be determinative of the cause.” We have interpreted section 57 to authorize our exercise of jurisdiction only if: (1) there is no dispute as to the material facts at issue; (2) there are no clear controlling precedents; and (3) our answer, in one alternative, would be determinative of the case. Me. Green Party v. Sec’y of State, 1997 ME 175, ¶2, 698 A.2d 516, 517; League of Women Voters v. Sec’y of State, 683 A.2d 769, 771 (Me.1996).
[¶ 19] The Court’s opinion and the Magistrate Judge’s decision recognize that the cause of the fire, and thus the Snyder’s responsibility, is contested. The Magistrate Judge could not resolve that basic contested fact at the summary judgment stage because, as the Magistrate Judge noted, “[n]either party includes in their respective statements of material facts the basic facts giving rise to this action .... ” The Court cannot determine that the material facts at issue are not in dispute when the record lacks “the basic facts giving rise to this action.” In summary judgment practice, courts may not consider facts except those that appear with proper record references in statements of material fact. D. Me. Local R. 56(e); Johnson v. McNeil, 2002 ME 99, ¶ 8, 800 A.2d 702, 704; Gilbert v. Gilbert, 2002 ME 67, ¶ 15, 796 A.2d 57, 60-61.
[¶20] Resolving the contested issue of responsibility is an unavoidable prerequisite to addressing legal doctrines of subro-gation. Before factual responsibility is resolved, argument about subrogation can only be in the abstract. With this central material fact unresolved, our case law, if we follow it, appears to bar answering the certified question.
[¶ 21] Even if the Snyders are ultimately found to be responsible for the fire, their financial responsibility to North River is resolvable by application of accepted doctrines of contract interpretation to the Snyders’ lease contract. Paragraph 16 of the lease specifies that: (1) the Snyders are “responsible for the conduct” of anyone whom they invite or allow to be on the premises, and (2) “[w]henever the landlord has to pay any expense or suffers any other loss, because of anything done by the Resident or any other person ... the resident must promptly provide full reimbursement to the Landlord.”
[¶ 22] The Magistrate Judge’s decision suggests that because this indemnification clause does not mention insurance, it does not address subrogation and thus generates the Sutton issue. That is cutting the analysis a bit too fine. The Court acknowledges that the Snyders had liability insurance. It would appear that the parties to the lease contemplated tenant responsibility. The Court’s imposition of a requirement that subrogation and indemnification is waived if the tenant is insured, unless the indemnification clause addresses insurance and allows subrogation, cuts the analysis even finer.
[¶ 23] The First Circuit, the relevant authority governing this case, has observed that “[i]t is black-letter law that the meaning of an unambiguous writing must be derived exclusively from within its four corners.” Elliott v. S.D. Warren Co., 134 F.3d 1, 9 (1st Cir.1998) (citing our opinion in Portland Valve, Inc. v. Rockwood Sys. Corp., 460 A.2d 1383, 1387 (Me.1983)). Here, the indemnification clause, paragraph 16, is clear and unambiguous. It can be interpreted, within the four corners of the contract, without resort to extrinsic evidence or doctrines of interpretation applied to ambiguous contracts. The Magistrate Judge did not interpret the indemnification clause or the lease as a whole but moved directly to Sutton.
*406[¶ 24] The Snyders appear to argue that because they are insured, the indemnification clause should be ignored and, under Sutton, the landlord’s insurance company should be required to pay for any insured damages the Snyders may cause to the landlord’s property. However, as with the liability issue, the Sutton issue could and should only be reached after it is determined that the indemnity clause is ambiguous and does not, within its four corners, resolve the question of whether the tenants are responsible to pay for losses that they or their invitees cause to the landlord — whether the tenants are insured or not.
[¶ 25] The prerequisites to answering the certified question, established by our own recent precedent, have not been met: (1) there cannot be “no dispute as to the material facts” when our record lacks “the basic facts giving rise to this action”; (2) the governing law is clear; any obligation of the Snyders is established by reading the plain language of their lease, interpreted according to well established principles of contract interpretation; and (3) our decision will be determinative of nothing unless the disputed facts are decided against the Snyders and their lease is interpreted contrary to its plain meaning.
[¶ 26] On this limited record of disputed facts, we should be prudent and decline to answer a question with major policy implications for landlord/tenant contractual relations. I would decline to answer the certified question and leave to our Legislature the question of tenant responsibility for damage to landlord property for which the landlord is insured.