Aetna Casualty & Surety Co. v. Superior Court
| Decision Date | 29 December 1980 |
| Citation | 114 Cal.App.3d 49,170 Cal.Rptr. 527 |
| Court | California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals |
| Parties | The AETNA CASUALTY AND SURETY COMPANY, a corporation, Petitioner, v. SUPERIOR COURT of the State of California, for the COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES, Respondent. Guadalupe AVALOS et al., Real Parties in Interest. Civ. 59094. |
Coyle, Marrone & Robinson, and J. Alan Frederick, Los Angeles, for petitioner.
Morton Shatzkin, Los Angeles, and Carter J. Stroud, Alameda, for real parties in interest.
No appearance on behalf of respondent Court.
The Aetna Casualty and Surety Company, a corporation, has petitioned this court for a writ of mandate directing respondent Superior Court of Los Angeles County to vacate its order denying petitioner a summary judgment declaring, in effect, that it has discharged fully its obligations to its insured, real party in interest, Guadalupe Avalos, under a specified automobile liability policy which it issued to him and to render instead the summary judgment for petitioner that it sought. Respondent court denied appellant's motion on the ground that issues of material fact exist in petitioner's declaratory relief action.
The fundamental issue posed in this writ proceeding is whether an insurer is required either under the law of negligence generally or under the covenant of good faith and fair dealing, implicit in every insurance policy, to attempt to settle a possible but unaccrued wrongful death claim at the time it settles a personal injury claim against its insured filed on behalf of a severely injured individual, particularly when it exhausts the insurance payable under the policy in its settlement of the personal injury claim. We hold, for reasons that follow, that it is not, and we will therefore grant petitioner the peremptory writ of mandate it seeks.
On April 3, 1975 Blas Gomez received severe head injuries when Guadalupe Avalos, petitioner's insured, negligently crashed his automobile, in which both were riding, into a utility pole. Gomez sustained a subdural hematoma and was rendered unconscious. He remained unconscious until his death on July 6, 1976.
Meanwhile, on August 15, 1975, Gomez, by a guardian ad litem, sued Avalos in respondent court for damages for his injuries in the accident (Case No. SE C 16305). A month later Gomez' attorney contacted a claims adjuster of petitioner, supplied him with a copy of the police report on the single-car accident and informed him that Gomez had been unconscious since the accident. On October 6, 1975, John Giacomin, a suit representative of petitioner on casualty claims, informed this attorney of the $15,000 and $30,000 limits of the applicable policy that petitioner had issued Avalos, whereupon Gomez, through this attorney, demanded the purportedly applicable policy limit of $15,000 in exchange for an appropriate release. Giacomin, on behalf of petitioner, then examined the information which Gomez' attorney had supplied him regarding Gomez' medical condition. This included his Rancho Los Amigos hospital chart. Petitioner and Gomez, through Giacomin and Gomez' attorney, then negotiated a settlement of Gomez' personal injury claim for $15,000, which settlement respondent court approved on October 27, 1975 on petition of Gomez' guardian ad litem. Gomez' personal injury action was then dismissed upon his request and petitioner paid Gomez on November 20, 1975, apparently through his attorney, the agreed amount of $15,000 in full settlement of the personal injury claim.
During the negotiations for the settlement of this personal injury claim petitioner neither sought nor obtained a release from Gomez of a possible future unaccrued claim for Gomez' wrongful death. 2 It did this although it was informed prior to judicial approval of the settlement of the personal injury claim that Gomez' guardian ad litem then thought that he would not regain consciousness and that his condition would continue to deteriorate. But all that a board-qualified neurologist could aver in his declaration filed in opposition to petitioner's already-mentioned motion for summary judgment with respect to Gomez' then probable condition was as follows:
As we mentioned at the outset of this opinion, on July 6, 1976 Gomez, without regaining consciousness, died from the head injuries he sustained in the single-car accident. On November 10, 1976, the same attorney, who had negotiated for Gomez the settlement of his personal injury claim, demanded on behalf of Gomez' children the purported remaining $15,000 payable under petitioner's policy in settlement of their claim of damages for Gomez' wrongful death. 3 Petitioner apparently ignored this demand and consequently on January 7, 1977 this attorney filed in respondent court a wrongful death action on behalf of Gomez' children against petitioner's insured, Avalos (Case No. SE C 20798). In May 1977 counsel for Avalos, retained by petitioner in the wrongful death action, stipulated to a judgment therein in the amount of $150,000 in return for plaintiffs therein executing a covenant not to execute on the judgment personally against Avalos providing he assigned to them all of his rights against petitioner. Thereafter respondent court approved this settlement of the wrongful death action on petition of the guardian ad litem of a minor heir of Gomez and by October 1977 apparently this settlement was fully performed.
Meanwhile on July 22, 1977, petitioner commenced its action in respondent court for declaratory relief (Case No. C 207258) against Avalos and the children of Gomez. On October 6, 1977, Gomez' children filed in this declaratory relief action a cross-complaint against petitioner for $150,000 in damages on the theory that petitioner had breached the covenant of good faith and fair dealing implicit in the policy which it had issued to Avalos in not attempting to obtain a release of the possible wrongful death claim at the time it settled Gomez' personal injury claim.
On January 21, 1980, petitioner moved for a summary judgment in the declaratory relief action. On February 19, 1980, respondent court denied the motion and petitioner then applied to this court for a writ of mandate to compel respondent court to grant its motion. We issued an alternative writ of mandate and have now heard oral argument in the matter following the filing of a return to our alternative writ. This return advised us of respondent court's entry of the already-mentioned order determining certain factual issues in the declaratory relief action, as already noted in footnote 2 hereto, and of respondent court's further order denying the cross-complainants in the declaratory relief action permission to amend their cross-complaint to allege a count of negligence.
There are three primary issues before us. They are: (1) Is this an appropriate proceeding for relief in mandamus? (2) What is the monetary coverage that petitioner provided its insured, Avalos, in the automobile liability policy it had issued to him that is involved herein? (3) Was petitioner entitled to the summary judgment it sought in the declaratory relief action?
Extraordinary relief by way of mandate to correct a completely erroneous denial of a summary judgment is occasionally justified by the extraordinary circumstances of a particular case. This is such a case. Here, respondent court denied petitioner's motion apparently because it believed that triable issues of material fact exist with respect to petitioner's failure to attempt to negotiate a settlement of a possible future wrongful death claim when it purportedly exhausted its policy coverage of its insured in settling a person injury claim against him growing out of one accident. To our knowledge no such legal duty on the part of an insurer toward its insured either under the covenant of good faith and fair dealing implicit in every insurance policy or under the law of negligence generally has ever been recognized. If this be so, then petitioner was legally entitled to the summary judgment it sought and it should not be compelled to undergo the expense of further discovery and trial to obtain an answer to a question of law which admits of but one answer. In short, we hold that on the undisputed facts presented to respondent court, it had no discretion in the matter and, therefore, it was clearly obligated to grant petitioner's motion for summary judgment in petitioner's declaratory relief action. (See Whitney's at the Beach v. Superior Court (1970) 3 Cal.App.3d 258, 265, 266, 83 Cal.Rptr. 237.)
The pertinent portions of Avalos' policy issued by petitioner are as follows:
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