Court Opinion

ID: 9474746
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 05:07:44.564134+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:44:18.720092
License: Public Domain

*1144OPINION ON REHEARING
HENRY A. POLITZ, Circuit Judge:
This matter is before the court on the application of Canal Insurance Company for rehearing and on its motion to add a third member to the panel.
Canal’s reliance on Kowntouris v. Var-varis 476 So.2d 599 (Miss.1985), as authority for the proposition that Mississippi courts would not apply Arkansas law to the radius-exclusion clause of the insurance contract is misplaced. In Kountouris, the Mississippi Supreme Court expressly reaffirmed its reliance on the Restatement (Second) of Conflicts of Laws (1971), 476 So.2d at 606, which we applied in the instant case. Kountouris involved the application of the Second Restatement to an instrument drafted in Mississippi conveying real property in Greece. The Mississippi Supreme Court suggested, 476 So.2d at 606, that under the Second Restatement’s test, Greek law would be applicable. It did not say that Mississippi would not give effect to the law of another jurisdiction in determining the validity of a clause in a contract. We remain convinced that by following the rules laid out in the Second Restatement, we accurately predicted Mississippi law.
Canal also requests clarification of one aspect of our opinion. We oblige. It was not our intent to decide whether Canal’s liability is limited to the minimum amount required under the Arkansas law we relied on ($25,000) or to the limits of its insurance policy ($100,000). That issue is to be first addressed by the trial court on remand.
With the foregoing clarification, the petition for rehearing is DENIED. Canal’s motion to add a third member to the panel to replace Judge Albert Tate, Jr. is also DENIED.