American Fire & Casualty Co. v. Allstate Ins. Co., 6816.
| Decision Date | 22 July 1954 |
| Docket Number | No. 6816.,6816. |
| Citation | 214 F.2d 523 |
| Parties | AMERICAN FIRE & CASUALTY CO. v. ALLSTATE INS. CO. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit |
Joseph R. Young, Charleston, S. C. (Hagood, Rivers & Young, Charleston, S. C., on brief), for appellant.
B. Allston Moore, Charleston, S. C. (Moore & Mouzon, Charleston, S. C., on brief), for appellee.
Before PARKER, Chief Judge, and SOPER and DOBIE, Circuit Judges.
The appeal in this case is taken from a judgment wherein the Allstate Insurance Company was held entitled to recover from the American Fire and Casualty Company, under the latter's policy of automobile insurance covering a jeep, two-sevenths of the damages recovered by William F. Greene and Julius Williams as the result of a collision between an automobile in which they were riding and a Chrysler automobile driven by Martin T. Kramer with the jeep in tow. Kramer owned both the Chrysler and the jeep. The Chrysler was covered by a policy of the Allstate Insurance Company which paid the damages recovered by the injured parties and brought this suit to compel contribution by the insurer of the jeep.
Greene and Williams brought suits in the Court of Common Pleas of Jasper County, South Carolina, against Kramer which resulted in a verdict of $17,800 in favor of Greene, and a verdict of $1500 in favor of Williams for bodily injuries. Both insurance companies responded to the call of Kramer and participated in the defense of the suit, but the American Company reserved the right to deny liability to the insured on the ground that the Chrysler car and not the jeep was solely responsible for the accident. After the trial Allstate obtained a settlement of the suits by paying the total sum of $15,000 of which $13,827.55 was paid to Greene and $1172.45 was paid to Williams. There is no contest as to the propriety of this settlement.
The American Company agreed by its policy covering the jeep to pay on behalf of Kramer any sum which he should be obligated to pay as damages because of bodily injuries sustained by any person "caused by accident and arising out of the ownership, maintenance or use of the automobile." The coverage as to bodily injury liability was limited to $10,000 for each person and $20,000 for each accident.
The provisions of the Allstate policy covering the Chrysler as to bodily injury were similar to those contained in the American policy covering the jeep, except that the liability for bodily...
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