Court Opinion

ID: 9769170
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 14:36:53.447631+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:56.789950
License: Public Domain

HECHT, Justice,
dissenting.
When Lisa Jeanine Sudderth ran her father’s pickup into Randal Black’s car she had no idea whether she was insured. In fact, she was not. But her father, C.O. Daniel, believed she was, and he had an “identification card” which his employer had given him that he thought said she was, although it did not exactly say that. So the Court concludes from this that an insurance company which never had any dealings with Sudderth or Daniel should be *28put to trial to decide whether it may nevertheless be liable to them and Black for actual and punitive damages for breach of contract, violations of the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices-Consumer Protection Act and the Texas Insurance Code, negligence, gross negligence, fraud, and breach of the duty of good faith and fair dealing. If there is a fact issue in this case, then I question how any claim against an insurance company, no matter how frivolous, can ever be dismissed by summary judgment. I dissent.
Daniel’s employer, Wood Brothers, bought a liability insurance policy from Victoria Lloyds covering various trucks used in its business, including Daniel’s pickup, which he leased to Wood Brothers. The policy covered Daniel’s pickup only when it was being used on Wood Brothers’ business. This is the policy Wood Brothers wanted and paid for. Victoria Lloyds gave Wood Brothers a number of small identification cards which it believed Wood Brothers needed to comply with section IB of the Texas Safety Responsibility Act, TEX. REV.CIV.STAT.ANN. art. 6701h, § IB (Vernon Supp.1990).1 Each card measured about 2" X 4", referenced a policy number and expiration date, named Wood Brothers as the insured, and stated on the back, among other things: “THIS POLICY COMPLIES WITH THE COMPULSORY AUTO LAWS OF THE STATE OF TEXAS”. Wood Brothers gave Daniel one of the cards but did not say anything to him about whether the card indicated that his truck was covered when it was not being driven on Wood Brothers’ business.
Daniel and Victoria Lloyds never had any contact until after Sudderth's accident. Victoria Lloyds did not give Daniel the identification card; Victoria Lloyds gave the card to Wood Brothers and Wood Brothers gave it to Daniel. This fact is most important because the statement in the card as a representation by Victoria Lloyds to Wood Brothers and its drivers while engaged in its business was absolutely true. Had Victoria Lloyds made the same representation about this policy to anyone else, it would not have been true. Victoria Lloyds did not make the representation to Daniel; Wood Brothers did. If Wood Brothers had told Daniel that the statement on the card applied to him only while he was driving his truck on Wood Brothers’ business, then the statement would have been true. But Wood Brothers did not explain the card to Daniel.
The Court implies that Victoria Lloyds intended that Wood Brothers give the cards to its drivers, suggesting, I suppose, that Victoria Lloyds is responsible for Wood Brothers’ failure to explain the cards to its drivers. The Court states: “Victoria Lloyds issued insurance cards to Wood Brothers for distribution to all its drivers”. Supra at 22. This statement is only half-true: the summary judgment record establishes without contradiction that Victoria Lloyds issued cards to Wood Brothers for distribution to its drivers for use in their employment. Specifically, Victoria Lloyds’ representative testified at his deposition in response to questions by opposing counsel:
Q. All right. And the purpose of you giving the card to Wood Brothers *29was to distribute it to the hired vehicles, right?
A. For the purpose of while they worked for Wood Brothers.
Q. I understand your position on that....
There is no basis in the allegations of the parties or the summary judgment record for holding Victoria Lloyds responsible for Wood Brothers’ distribution of the identification cards. What if Wood Brothers had given cards to customers or friends, or just passed them out on the street? Would each recipient be entitled to conclude that he was suddenly covered by a liability insurance policy that he had never seen issued by Victoria Lloyds, a company that he did not even know existed? Could anyone who happened to come upon a stray card file a claim with Victoria Lloyds and when it was denied, sue for negligence, statutory violations, fraud and bad faith? In the context of this case, what if Daniel had given the card to Sudderth to use while driving her own car?
I suppose even this Court would have to strain to extend its bearer-bond notion of these simple little identification cards quite that far. The Court’s view strikes me a little like holding the State of Texas liable for a driver’s negligence because it licensed him to drive, or holding a bank liable to pay a bounced check because it represented that the issuer had an open account. Perhaps that is why the Court repeats that it is the card and Daniel’s affidavit — each time stressing that both must be taken together — that raise a fact issue in this case. The Court leaves the impression, although it never clearly states, that the card itself in this case does not raise a fact issue as to whether Victoria Lloyds is liable on the claims asserted.
It is hard to see, however, how Daniel’s affidavit contributes to raising a fact issue. It establishes that the premiums for the coverage of his pickup were deducted from his pay, but this shows only that Daniel paid for his own business insurance. Daniel never paid for liability insurance covering the personal use of his truck, and he does not claim otherwise. Daniel asserts that a Wood Brothers employee told him that the company liability policy covered his personal use of his pickup (although his deposition testimony was mostly to the contrary), but he never asserts that Victoria Lloyds told him so, and Wood Brothers’ representation, if it was made, is not even alleged to be attributable to Victoria Lloyds. Daniel says he was never told that personal use of his pickup was not covered by the policy, and that if he had been, he would have purchased his own liability insurance; but surely Victoria Lloyds had no duty to go around telling its insured’s employees one by one as they came and went from time to time that they were not covered by one of its policies. Daniel stresses in his affidavit that he believed he was covered by the Victoria Lloyds policy. But how can Daniel’s subjective, unexpressed belief, however sincere, alter the fact that he was never insured?
The Court seems to say this: if you pay someone for some kind of insurance and he gives you a card that says you are insured, but you never contact an insurer or an agent and you never see a policy, but you still believe in your heart that you are insured, then you may very well be insured. This Cartesian theory of insurance —“I believe, therefore I am insured” — is not only far-fetched, it is completely unworkable. What are the limits of the coverage the Court thinks Daniel might have? The minimum statutory limits that the card referred to? The limits of Wood Brothers’ policy? The limits Daniel wishes he had, or that Black hopes he had? What are the terms of this imaginary policy? The standard terms, whatever those are? The terms Daniel thought he had? At the trial of this case, will the jury be asked to make up some terms and limits and coverages for this made-up policy? Or is it all much simpler? Will the jury simply be asked to award punitive damages against Victoria Lloyds for allowing Daniel to believe he was insured when he was not? The Court does not attempt to answer any of these questions.
The Court reiterates that there are fact issues in this case that must be tried, but I am at a loss to see what they are. The Court mentions two: “concerning misrepresentation of the liability insurance coverage *30for personal use”, supra at 22, and “concerning whether Victoria Lloyds waived the policy provisions excluding coverage for personal use of Daniel’s vehicle by a later representation in the insurance care that was at variance with the written terms of the policy”, supra at 26. These facts are not in dispute. Victoria Lloyds never made any statement to Daniel, and it never made a false statement to Wood Brothers. No basis has been alleged in the pleadings, raised in the summary judgment record, or suggested by the Court for holding Victoria Lloyds liable for Wood Brothers’ statements and omissions and Daniel’s subjective belief. If Victoria Lloyds should have done something more or different, the Court should say so.
If there are fact issues in this case, could there ever be such a case in which there were not fact issues? How could these facts be changed to entitle Victoria Lloyds to summary judgment? The Court put these very questions to petitioners’ counsel. What if Victoria Lloyds had stamped the card, “Not Valid for Personal Use"?
COUNSEL: On the facts of this particular case, that may have done it. But again, we’d have to look at the entire record to see if the conduct of the insurance company’s is misleading, because questions of whether or not something is a misrepresentation, or a question of whether it's misleading, or a question of whether it’s negligence, is just so inherently an issue of fact that it’s hard to ever resolve it by summary judgment. ...
What if Victoria Lloyds had added to the card something to the effect, “See policy for details”?
COUNSEL: That is exactly the point. The point is, if they had done that, would that conduct have been negligent or not? Would they then have provided enough information to discharge the burden of a reasonably prudent person? That is a question of fact that should be resolved by the trier of fact, not resolved by summary judgment.
Well, then, what if Victoria Lloyds had given Daniel the entire policy, all 27 pages of it? Would that fact entitle Victoria Lloyds to summary judgment? Is there any way to get a summary judgment in a case like this?
COUNSEL: I would be hard pressed— as a lawyer who works on the plaintiffs’ side of the bar — I would be hard pressed to fault an insurance company who gave somebody an insurance policy by them saying, well, this policy is confusing so therefore it’s inherently misleading. I mean — so if they had just given the policy, I think, I fail to see how that’s going to — that’s going to be hard to make a misleading argument. Perhaps they could then engage in other conduct. And in fact — see, it’s not just the language of the policy, it’s the conduct: not only the issuance of the card, but the omission to state the fact. It’s all that conduct that we are claiming raises a fact issue on the misleading aspect of their transaction.
Petitioners’ counsel could not imagine even one scenario in which summary judgment would be proper. Given the Court’s view, I cannot either. Unless the Court means to abolish summary judgments against plaintiffs who sue insurance companies in all cases, it should attempt what petitioners have failed — to explain how summary judgment could be granted.2
I dissent.
PHILLIPS, C.J., and GONZALEZ and COOK, JJ., join in this dissenting opinion.

. That statute provides in pertinent part:
(a) On and after January 1, 1982, every owner and/or operator in the State of Texas shall be required, as a condition of driving, to furnish, upon request, evidence of financial responsibility to a law enforcement office of the State of Texas or any subdivision thereof, or agent of the Department, or to another person involved in an accident.
(b) The following evidence of financial responsibility satisfies the requirement of Subsection (a) of this section:
(2) a written instrument issued by a liability insurer that includes:
(A) the name of the insurer;
(B) the insurance policy number;
(C) the policy period;
(D) the name of the insured; and
(E) the policy limits or a statement that the coverage of the policy complies with the minimum amount of liability insurance required by this Act....

. The Court calls this concern about the impact of its decision on summary judgment practice speculation and declines to consider it for “obvious reasons”. Supra at 24. Those unstated reasons must not have been obvious to the Court when it questioned counsel extensively on the subject at oral argument, nor are they obvious to me now, I am not aware that it is improper for the Court to consider the effect of its decisions on the law. Despite the Court’s insistence that it has not abolished summary judgments in suits against insurance companies, it does not offer either an example or an explanation of how a summary judgment might be appropriate.