Court Opinion

ID: 9366520
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-01-26 21:00:53.904256+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:15:53.135786
License: Public Domain

USCA4 Appeal: 21-1281       Doc: 21        Filed: 01/25/2023     Pg: 1 of 5

                                             UNPUBLISHED

                               UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
                                   FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

                                               No. 21-1281

        FARM FAMILY CASUALTY INSURANCE COMPANY,

                             Plaintiff - Appellee,

                      v.

        EDWARD J. SEA, Personal Representative of Tyrone N. Sea and Administrator of his
        Estate; TYRONE N. SEA; EDWARD J. SEA, Personal Representative of Andromeda K.
        Kesner and Administrator of her Estate; ANDROMEDA K. KESNER; EDWARD J. SEA,
        individually and as guardian and next friend of J.K.; RACHEL KESNER, individually and
        as guardian and next friend of J.K.; J.K., a minor,

                             Defendants - Appellants,

                      and

        JOHN K. ELWOOD, a/k/a Jack Elwood; BETTY ELWOOD; JOHN KEVIN ELWOOD;
        STEPHEN LEE DIBLASI; DEBORAH GRACE ELLIOT-SMITH; RUTH EUGENIA
        WHITNER; LAURA ANN DINERT; NANCY SUE ELWOOD,

                             Defendants.

        Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia, at
        Beckley. Frank W. Volk, District Judge. (5:19-cv-00892)

        Submitted: November 8, 2022                                    Decided: January 25, 2023

        Before THACKER and RUSHING, Circuit Judges, and FLOYD, Senior Circuit Judge.
USCA4 Appeal: 21-1281      Doc: 21         Filed: 01/25/2023    Pg: 2 of 5

        Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

        ON BRIEF: Weldon Mark Burnette, MARK BURNETTE, P.A., Ocala, Florida, for
        Appellants. David L. Wyant, Jason P. Pockl, BAILEY & WYANT, PLLC, Wheeling,
        West Virginia, for Appellee.

        Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.

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        PER CURIAM:

                 This insurance case arises out of a tragic house fire in which two children died and

        two other people were injured. The house was covered by two liability policies (the “Farm

        Policy” and the “Commercial Policy”) and one umbrella policy, all issued by Farm Family

        Casualty Insurance Company (“FFCIC”). After claimants to the policies sued FFCIC in

        state court, the parties reached a settlement agreement in which FFCIC agreed to pay $1

        million under the Farm Policy, plus another $1 million under the umbrella policy.

        However, the parties could not agree on whether the Commercial Policy was payable;

        consequently, the settlement agreement further provided that FFCIC would commence the

        instant declaratory judgment action against the claimants (“Defendants”) to resolve this

        issue.

                 The district court granted summary judgment to FFCIC based on the Commercial

        Policy’s anti-stacking endorsement, which capped FFCIC’s total per-occurrence liability

        at $1 million. Defendants timely appealed, disputing the applicability and enforceability

        of the anti-stacking endorsement. For the reasons that follow, we affirm.

                 “We review de novo a district court’s award of summary judgment, viewing the

        facts in the light most favorable to the non-moving party.” Chapman v. Oakland Living

        Ctr., Inc., 48 F.4th 222, 228 (4th Cir. 2022). “Summary judgment is appropriate only when

        ‘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)). As the

        parties agree, the substantive law of West Virginia applies here. See Uncork & Create

        LLC v. Cincinnati Ins. Co., 27 F.4th 926, 931 & n.5 (4th Cir. 2022).

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               Initially, Defendants contend that the anti-stacking endorsement is irrelevant

        because, in their view, this case does not involve “stacking” as that term is understood in

        West Virginia. We disagree. The Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia has

        approvingly cited a definition of stacking that covers “an insured’s attempted recovery of

        damages under more than one policy, endorsement or coverage.” Starr v. State Farm

        Fire & Cas. Co., 423 S.E.2d 922, 925 n.2 (W. Va. 1992) (internal quotation marks

        omitted). And recovery under multiple liability policies is exactly what Defendants are

        seeking here. For this reason, we conclude that the anti-stacking endorsement applies to

        this dispute.

               Next, Defendants maintain that West Virginia law broadly proscribes anti-stacking

        language in insurance policies. On the contrary, the prohibition to which Defendants refer

        is confined to uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage, an area of West Virginia

        insurance law that, by statute, contains additional protections for policyholders based on

        the state’s public policy. See State Auto. Mut. Ins. Co. v. Youler, 396 S.E.2d 737, 746 (W.

        Va. 1990). But “in the case of liability insurance coverage,” “antistacking language . . .

        does not violate any applicable insurance statute or regulation.” Id. (cleaned up). Thus,

        we reject Defendants’ attempt to import this narrow anti-stacking limitation into the

        context of general liability policies.

               Turning to the policy language, Defendants assert that the anti-stacking

        endorsement is ambiguous when read together with the policies’ other-insurance

        provisions.     Specifically, Defendants maintain that the endorsement and the other-

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        insurance provisions establish separate and conflicting payment schemes for situations in

        which multiple policies cover the same loss.

               Again, we disagree. When coverage is available from multiple FFCIC policies, the

        anti-stacking endorsement caps FFCIC’s total per-occurrence liability without specifying

        how much will come from each policy. By contrast, the other-insurance provisions detail

        how much each applicable policy will pay without purporting to limit FFCIC’s total

        liability. In other words, these provisions are complementary, not conflicting, and we

        therefore discern no ambiguity in the anti-stacking endorsement.

               Finally, Defendants contend that the anti-stacking endorsement violates West

        Virginia public policy against fraudulent insurance contracts, reasoning that the

        endorsement effectively renders the Commercial Policy worthless. This argument might

        hold water if the two liability policies were merely redundant of one another. But that is

        not the case: the Commercial Policy provides coverage for several additional properties

        not covered by the Farm Policy. Moreover, the two policies offer different types of

        coverage. And, by having both policies, Defendants enjoy greater protection against

        multiple, unrelated losses occurring during the same policy period. Thus, we cannot

        conclude that the Commercial Policy is so lacking in value that it violates public policy.

               Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s judgment. 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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