Court Opinion

ID: 9365226
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-01-23 15:00:37.830808+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:15:43.832032
License: Public Domain

USCA11 Case: 22-11881    Document: 30-1     Date Filed: 01/23/2023   Page: 1 of 8

                                                  [DO NOT PUBLISH]
                                   In the
                United States Court of Appeals
                        For the Eleventh Circuit

                          ____________________

                                No. 22-11881
                          Non-Argument Calendar
                          ____________________

       NATIONAL INDEMNITY COMPANY OF THE SOUTH,
                                                      Plaintiff-Appellee,
       versus
       MA ALTERNATIVE TRANSPORT SERVICES, INC.,
       a Florida Corporation,
       SHERRY HENRY,

                                                 Defendants-Appellants.

                          ____________________

                 Appeal from the United States District Court
                      for the Middle District of Florida
USCA11 Case: 22-11881      Document: 30-1     Date Filed: 01/23/2023     Page: 2 of 8

       2                      Opinion of the Court                 22-11881

                   D.C. Docket No. 6:19-cv-00013-RBD-LHP
                          ____________________

       Before WILSON, NEWSOM, and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges.
       PER CURIAM:
              This federal case originated when National Indemnity Com-
       pany of the South (“the Insurance Company”) filed a complaint in
       the district court seeking a declaratory judgment that it owed no
       coverage under MA Alternative Transport Services’s (“MA Alter-
       native”) liability insurance policy. The Insurance Company claims
       that MA Alternative breached the notification and cooperation
       clauses in the Policy and that those breaches prejudiced it. The
       Insurance Company claims that MA Alternative received a copy of
       Sherry Henry’s complaint after it was filed in state court, but failed
       to notify or send a copy to the Insurance Company and failed to
       apprise the Insurance Company of subsequent developments in the
       state court case, thus breaching the notification and cooperation
       clauses of the Policy, and prejudicing the Insurance Company (i.e.
       the default judgment in Henry’s state lawsuit against MA Alterna-
       tive). The district court granted partial summary judgment in fa-
       vor of the Insurance Company. See Dist. Ct. Doc. 86. The sum-
       mary judgment left certain issues to be tried to a jury, some of
       which are relevant to this appeal.
              The jury trial was held. The jury found, inter alia, that MA
       Alternative had breached the notification and cooperation clauses
       in the Policy, and that the Insurance Company suffered prejudice.
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       22-11881                Opinion of the Court                         3

               Appellants make three discrete arguments on appeal. The
       first challenges the district court’s failure to grant summary judg-
       ment in their favor with respect to the prejudice issue. The second
       and third arguments challenge two evidentiary rulings of the dis-
       trict court with respect to the jury trial. After careful consideration
       of the briefs of the parties and relevant parts of the record, we con-
       clude that the judgment of the district court is due to be affirmed.
               We write only for the parties who are already familiar with
       the facts and the relevant law. Therefore we write only so much
       as is necessary for the parties to understand our reasoning.
                                         I.
              Appellants’ first issue on appeal is whether the district court
       erred in failing to grant summary judgment in their favor on the
       prejudice issue. Appellants argue that the state court default judg-
       ment (resulting from the breaches of the notification and coopera-
       tion clauses of the Policy) did not prejudice the Insurance Com-
       pany because it had an opportunity to vacate the default judgment,
       but ineffectively pursued that opportunity in state court. We note
       that the Appellants implicitly acknowledge on appeal that MA Al-
       ternative failed to notify the Insurance Company of Henry’s com-
       plaint and other developments in the state court case, thus breach-
       ing the notification and cooperation clauses of the Policy. Rather,
       Appellants argue that the Insurance Company could have done a
       better job in state court in prosecuting the motion to vacate the
       default judgment. They argue that the default judgment could
       have been vacated easily, and thus there would have been no
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       4                       Opinion of the Court                 22-11881

       prejudice. In other words, Appellants argue that they should not
       be held responsible for the prejudice that the Insurance Company
       suffered on account of the default judgment, which they argue was
       caused instead by the Insurance Company’s own inadequate advo-
       cacy.
               We conclude that this first argument of Appellants on appeal
       is without merit for several reasons. First, none of the cases relied
       on by Appellants actually support Appellants’ argument. None of
       those cases support Appellants’ theory that the Insurance Com-
       pany’s alleged ineffective advocacy in the state court with respect
       to the motion to vacate the default judgment is the equivalent to,
       or sufficiently analogous to, an insurance company’s “unjustifi[ed]
       refus[al] to file and pursue a viable motion to set aside the [default]
       judgment.” Indem. Ins. Corp. of DC. v. Caylao, 130 So. 3d 783, 787
       (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 2014). As the district court said, the Appellants’
       argument relies on a “gross misstatement of the law,” Dist. Ct.
       Doc. 86 at 23, or a mere “rabbit trail,” Dist. Ct. Doc. 181 at 192.
       Second, as the district court held, at the summary judgment stage
       of the proceedings below, there were genuine issues of fact with
       respect to the facts Appellants now rely on in arguing that there
       was an easy, straightforward way the Insurance Company could
       have persuaded the state court to vacate the default judgment. For
       example, the district court held that there was a genuine issue of
       fact as to whether Duarte Santiago was a co-resident with Magalon
       (President of MA Alternative) at the time the process server served
       Henry’s complaint on Santiago at MA Alternative’s business
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       22-11881                   Opinion of the Court                               5

       address (Magalon’s residence). As the district court noted, the pro-
       cess server’s return of service, as well as his affidavit, suggested that
       Santiago told the process server that he was a co-resident there.
       See Dist. Ct. Doc. 86 at 21 (holding that there was a genuine issue
       of fact in this regard based on the “process server’s sworn affidavit
       stating that he served Duarte as a co-resident.”). Thus, both as a
       legal matter and as a factual matter, Appellants were not entitled
       to summary judgment in their favor with respect to Appellants’
       first argument on appeal. 1
             Accordingly, we conclude that Appellants’ first argument on
       appeal is without merit.
                                             II.
              Appellants’ second argument on appeal—i.e. that the district
       court abused its discretion when it denied Appellants’ motion in
       limine filed on Sunday immediately before trial began on Monday
       morning—is also wholly without merit. Appellants’ motion
       sought to concede the issue of prejudice and thereby exclude any
       evidence of the underlying state lawsuit which resulted in the $5
       million default judgment. The district court properly denied the
       last-minute motion as untimely. Whether or not MA Alternative’s

       1 Although Appellants’ motion for summary judgment and briefing in support
       thereof to the district court are far from clear that Appellants actually sought
       summary judgment in their favor in this regard—as opposed to merely oppos-
       ing summary judgment in favor of the Insurance Company—we need not de-
       cide that issue.
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       6                      Opinion of the Court                 22-11881

       breach of the notification and cooperation clauses of the Policy
       prejudiced the Insurance Company had been a disputed issue since
       the beginning of the district court proceedings. The district court’s
       summary judgement order held there were issues of fact with re-
       spect thereto that had to be tried to a jury. Thereafter, the joint
       pretrial statement filed on August 12, 2021, and the Pretrial Con-
       ference held on August 19, 2021, established that prejudice was a
       prime issue for the jury trial. Clearly, Appellants’ eve-of-trial at-
       tempt to change a primary issue for trial would have been highly
       prejudicial to the Insurance Company whose trial preparation ob-
       viously was already set. And Appellants did not explain to the dis-
       trict court, and do not explain on appeal, why Appellants had good
       cause for this last-minute attempt to obtain leave from the district
       court to grant Appellants’ request to make a substantial change in
       the structure of the jury trial which had long been mutually agreed
       upon and established. Appellants cited no reason in the district
       court—and cite none on appeal—why they delayed from August
       2021 to Sunday, December 12, 2021, on the very eve of the jury
       trial to request such a substantial change in the structure of the
       trial. Moreover, Appellants’ concession was not a complete con-
       cession of the prejudice issue; it did not eliminate a finding of lia-
       bility on the part of the Insurance Company. Rather, it conceded
       only that the default judgment could constitute prejudice. Appel-
       lants sought to still retain the right to argue that the prejudice was
       not caused by MA Alternative’s breaches of the Policy clauses.
       They still wanted to argue that the real cause of the prejudice was
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       22-11881               Opinion of the Court                         7

       the Insurance Company’s own ineffective advocacy in seeking to
       vacate the default judgment in the state court.
             Accordingly, we cannot conclude that the district court
       abused its discretion in this regard.
                                        III.
               Finally, Appellants’ third argument on appeal is also without
       merit. Appellants argue that the district court abused its discretion
       in admitting the testimony of Henry’s attorney in the state court
       proceedings. That attorney testified that on February 8, 2018, he
       mailed a copy of the state court trial judge’s order (“Trial Order”)
       noting that the default judgment had been entered against MA Al-
       ternative and a date had been set for litigation of damages. The
       attorney testified that he then received a telephone call from a male
       caller who identified himself as Magalon, indicating that he had re-
       ceived the Trial Order. Appellants argue that the attorney’s testi-
       mony is inadmissible hearsay. The district court ruled that the ev-
       idence was admissible as a statement of a party opponent (because
       Magalon was President of MA Alternative). Appellants argued in
       the district court and on appeal that there was insufficient authen-
       tication—i.e. that there was insufficient evidence that the caller was
       in fact Magalon and therefore the evidence could not be admitted
       as a statement of a party opponent.
             It is true that the mere assertion of identity by a person on a
       telephone call may not, by itself, be sufficient to authenticate that
       person’s identity. However, “some additional evidence, which
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       8                      Opinion of the Court               22-11881

       ‘need not fall in[to] any set pattern’ may provide the necessary
       foundation.” United States v. Dhinsa, 243 F.3d 635, 659 (2d Cir.
       2001) (quoting Fed.R.Evid. 901(b)(6) advisory committee notes, ex.
       6). We cannot conclude that the district court abused its discretion
       in finding sufficient authentication and admitting the evidence. In
       addition to the caller’s self-identification, the caller implicitly
       acknowledged receipt of the February 8, 2018, letter which we
       know was mailed to Magalon’s address; the caller asked Henry’s
       attorney: “Why is your office sending my company mail?” There
       ensued a discussion in which Henry’s attorney explained the Trial
       Order and that there had been a default judgment entered against
       Magalon’s company and a trial date set to determine damages, in
       response to which the caller used profanity and hung up. Rule
       901(b)(6) and example 6 in the Advisory Committee Notes support
       the district court’s ruling.
              We cannot conclude that the district court abused its discre-
       tion in this regard. We agree that the Insurance Company pro-
       duced “evidence sufficient to support a finding that [Henry’s attor-
       ney’s testimony] is what the proponent claims it is.” Fed.R.Evid.
       901(a). And Appellants did not rebut the Insurance Company’s
       prima facie case; Magalon did not testify at all.
             For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the district court
       is
             AFFIRMED.