Court Opinion

ID: 9381476
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-03-22 21:01:24.198591+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:17:32.801258
License: Public Domain

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                                             UNPUBLISHED

                                UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
                                    FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

                                               No. 21-1654

        GEORGE MIMS; CECILIA MIMS,

                             Plaintiffs - Appellants,

                      v.

        USAA CASUALTY INSURANCE COMPANY,

                             Defendant - Appellee.

        Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of South Carolina, at Florence.
        Joseph Dawson, III, District Judge. (4:19-cv-00765-JD)

        Submitted: March 16, 2023                                         Decided: March 21, 2023

        Before NIEMEYER, AGEE, and WYNN, Circuit Judges.

        Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

        ON BRIEF: Thomas J. Rode, THURMOND KIRCHNER & TIMBES, P.A., Charleston,
        South Carolina, for Appellants. John Robert Murphy, MURPHY & GRANTLAND, PA,
        Columbia, South Carolina, for Appellee.

        Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
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        PER CURIAM:

               George and Cecilia Mims appeal the district court’s orders granting USAA Casualty

        Insurance Company’s motion for summary judgment and denying the Mimses’ subsequent

        motion to alter or amend the judgment or for certification of questions to the South Carolina

        Supreme Court on the Mimses’ declaratory judgment action related to the stacking of

        underinsured motorist coverage under their insurance policy with USAA.              For the

        following reasons, we affirm. *

               We review a district court’s summary judgment ruling de novo, “applying the same

        legal standards as the district court and viewing all facts and reasonable inferences in the

        light most favorable to the nonmoving party.” Ballengee v. CBS Broad., Inc., 968 F.3d

        344, 349 (4th Cir. 2020). “Summary judgment is warranted ‘if the movant shows that there

        is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a

        matter of law.’” Id. (quoting Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a)). “A genuine question of material fact

        exists where, after reviewing the record as a whole, a court finds that a reasonable jury

        could return a verdict for the nonmoving party.”         J.D. ex rel. Doherty v. Colonial

        Williamsburg Found., 925 F.3d 663, 669 (4th Cir. 2019) (internal quotation marks

        omitted). In conducting this inquiry, courts may not “weigh conflicting evidence or make

        credibility determinations.” Id. But “the nonmoving party must rely on more than

        conclusory allegations, mere speculation, the building of one inference upon another, or

               *
                We previously denied the Mimses’ motion for certification to the Supreme Court
        of South Carolina.

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        the mere existence of a scintilla of evidence.” Humphreys & Partners Architects, L.P. v.

        Lessard Design, Inc., 790 F.3d 532, 540 (4th Cir. 2015) (internal quotation marks omitted).

               Under South Carolina law, stacking allows an insured motorist to recover damages

        under more than one policy until he satisfies all of his damages or exhausts the limits of

        his available policies. Giles v. Whitaker, 376 S.E.2d 278, 279 (S.C. 1989). An insured

        may stack unless limited by statute or a valid provision in his insurance policy. Jackson v.

        State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 342 S.E.2d 603, 604 (S.C. 1986). South Carolina law

        limits stacking of underinsured motorist coverage if “none of the insured’s or named

        insured’s vehicles is involved in the accident.” S.C. Code Ann. § 38-77-160. Instead,

        “coverage is available only to the extent of coverage on any one of the vehicles with the

        excess or underinsured coverage.” Id.

               In Merck v. Nationwide Mut. Ins. Co., the Supreme Court of South Carolina adopted

        a definition of “involved,” as used in § 38-77-160, meaning “to relate to or have an effect

        on . . . to draw in as a participant . . . [to] implicate, include, affect.” 455 S.E.2d 697, 698

        (S.C. 1995). Applying Merck, the district court found that the Mimses’ vehicle was not

        “involved in” the accident because the accident did not have “an effect on” their vehicle,

        therefore only seeming to consider one of the disjunctive elements of the definition outlined

        in Merck. Thus, because the district court did not appear to consider whether the accident

        also “related to,” “implicated,” “included,” or “drew in as a participant,” the Mimses’

        vehicle, the court may have improperly limited its definition of “involved in” when

        applying it to the facts of this case.

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               However, even considering the other elements of this definition, including whether

        the accident “related to,” “implicated,” “included,” or “drew in as a participant,” the

        Mimses’ vehicle, we conclude that the Mimses failed to demonstrate that their vehicle was

        “involved in” the relevant accident. Among other factors, the record fails to demonstrate

        that Mims had any contact with his vehicle, either before or after the accident, and there

        was no causal connection between his vehicle and the injuries he suffered. Mims was

        walking to his vehicle at the time he was struck but, by his own testimony, he had not yet

        reached his vehicle or physically engaged with it besides unlocking it remotely from across

        the parking lot.

               The Mimses are also not entitled to relief under the occupancy provision in their

        insurance policy, which defines “occupying” as “in, on, getting into or out of.” As a

        threshold matter, the parties dispute whether the occupancy provision is valid. The Mimses

        argue that the provision is void because it limits the circumstances in which stacking is

        allowed in violation of South Carolina’s mandate that insurers may not limit coverage in

        individual policies in a way that contravenes § 38-77-160, while USAA argues that the

        provision actually expands the circumstances in which stacking is allowed, and is therefore

        valid. However, regardless of whether this policy provision broadens or narrows the

        circumstances in which stacking is allowed, the circumstances here are not encompassed

        by the provision, as Mims was not “in, on, getting into or out of” his vehicle at the time of

        the accident. See Cramer v. Nat’l Cas. Co., 690 F. App’x 135, 138-39 (4th Cir. 2017)

        (argued but unpublished) (holding that, under South Carolina law, act of “‘getting to’ or

        ‘approaching’ [a] vehicle” is beyond terms of insurance policy with occupancy provision).

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               Accordingly, we affirm both orders. We dispense with oral argument because the

        facts and legal contentions are adequately presented in the materials before this court and

        argument would not aid the decisional process.

                                                                                      AFFIRMED

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