Court Opinion

ID: 2742310
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2014-10-15 13:02:34.448486+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:11:44.813415
License: Public Domain

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      CONNECTICUT INSURANCE GUARANTY ASSN. v. DROWN—
                             CONCURRENCE

   ROGERS, C. J., with whom, ZARELLA, J., joins, con-
curring. I agree with, and join in, the majority opinion’s
conclusions that the plaintiff, the Connecticut Insur-
ance Guaranty Association, is not estopped from con-
testing its statutory obligation to satisfy the claims at
issue due to the preinsolvency misconduct by Medical
Inter-Insurance Exchange, the insurer of the defendant
Associated Women’s Health Specialists, P.C., and, fur-
ther, that the relevant exclusion clause plainly and
unambiguously precludes coverage for those claims. I
write separately only to emphasize that, in the event
that an insurance policy term is deemed to be ambigu-
ous, the parties are entitled to present extrinsic evi-
dence regarding the mutual intent of the insured and
the insurer as to the scope of coverage, and the trial
court must consider that evidence before applying the
rule of contra proferentem to resolve the ambiguity in
favor of the insured. In other words, the rule should
be applied as a tie breaker only when all other avenues
to determining the parties’ intent have been exhausted.1
See Cruz v. Visual Perceptions, LLC, 311 Conn. 93,
107–108, 84 A.3d 828 (2014); see, e.g., Lexington Ins.
Co. v. Lexington Healthcare Group, Inc., 311 Conn. 29,
59 n.20, 84 A.3d 1167 (2014); Connecticut Ins. Guaranty
Assn. v. Fontaine, 278 Conn. 779, 788–89, 900 A.2d 18
(2006); Metropolitan Life Ins. Co. v. Aetna Casualty &
Surety Co., 255 Conn. 295, 306, 765 A.2d 891 (2001);
see also 1 B. Ostrager & T. Newman, Handbook on
Insurance Coverage Disputes (16th Ed. 2013) § 1.01 [b]
and [c], pp. 14–18; 1 B. Ostrager & T. Newman, supra,
§ 1.05, pp. 55–56; 2 S. Plitt et al., Couch on Insurance
Law (3d Ed. Rev. 2010) § 22:16, pp. 22-93 through 22-
94; but see 1 New Appleman on Insurance Law, Library
Edition, (J. Thomas & F. Mootz eds., 2011) § 5:02, p. 5-7.
  1
   I recognize that the present case was decided on the parties’ cross
motions for summary judgment, and that the plaintiff, both before the trial
court and on appeal, argued that the policy provision at issue was unambigu-
ous such that resort to extrinsic evidence was unnecessary. The defendants,
Susan Drown and Rodney Drown, individually and on behalf of their minor
son, Joshua Drown, and Associated Women’s Health Specialists, P.C., how-
ever, appended more than twenty exhibits to their summary judgment
motion, and the court, after finding an ambiguity, did not discuss or analyze
those exhibits before finding in favor of the defendants on the basis of
contra proferentem. It therefore is unclear whether the court relied on the
evidence sub silentio, disregarded it as unhelpful or otherwise incompetent,
or believed that evaluating it simply was unnecessary.