Lexington Ins. Co. v. Rolison

• Decision Date: 17 May 2006
• Docket Number: Civil Action 06-0025-WS-M.
• Citation: 434 F.Supp.2d 1228
• Parties: LEXINGTON INSURANCE COMPANY, Plaintiff, v. Rudolph F. ROLISON, Sr., et al., Defendants. Addiction & Mental Health Services, Inc., d/b/a Bradford Health Services, Defendant/Counterclaim Plaintiff, v. Lexington Insurance Company, Plaintiff/Counterclaim Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of Alabama

434 F.Supp.2d 1228

LEXINGTON INSURANCE COMPANY, Plaintiff, v. Rudolph F. ROLISON, Sr., et al., Defendants.

Addiction & Mental Health Services, Inc., d/b/a Bradford Health Services, Defendant/Counterclaim Plaintiff, v. Lexington Insurance Company, Plaintiff/Counterclaim Defendant.

Civil Action 06-0025-WS-M.

United States District Court, S.D. Alabama, Southern Division.

May 17, 2006.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

John W. Dodson, Michelle Leigh Crunk, Lisa F. Brown, Ferguson, Frost & Dodson, LLP, Birmingham, AL, for Plaintiff.

David M. Cowan, Mann & Cowan, P.C., Huckaby, Scott, & Dukes, P.C., Birmingham, AL, Robert T. Cunningham, Jr., Cunningham, Bounds, Yance, Crowder & Brown, Mobile, AL, for Defendants.

Carter H. Dukes, Huckaby, Scott, & Dukes, P.C., Birmingham, AL, for Defendant/Counterclaim Plaintiff.

ORDER

STEELE, District Judge.

This matter is before the Court on three pending motions, to-wit: defendant Rudolph Rolison's Amended Motion to Dismiss and/or Motion to Abstain (doc, 8), plaintiff/counterclaim defendant Lexington Insurance Company's Motion to Dismiss Count Two of Bradford's Counterclaim (doc. 30), and defendant/counterclaim plaintiff Addiction & Mental Health Services, Inc.'s Motion for Leave to File Amended Counterclaim (doc. 35). All of these motions have been briefed and are now ripe for disposition.¹

I. Background.

This insurance dispute bears a complicated, multi-tiered procedural pedigree. It constitutes one of four related lawsuits arising from a tragic automobile accident on February 7, 2002 at the junction of Interstate Highway 65 and Alabama State Highway 225, which resulted in the death of teenaged Melissa Allison Sproles ("Sproles"). On or about September 23, 2002, Laura Miller ("Miller"), as mother and next friend of Sproles, filed suit in Mobile County Circuit Court against Addiction and Mental Health Services, Inc., d/b/a Bradford Health Services, Inc. ("Bradford") and Rudolph Rolison ("Rolison") in an action styled Laura Miller v. Bradford Health Services, Inc. and Rudolph Rolison, CV-2002-3206 (the "Miller Action"). In that lawsuit, Miller alleged that Rolison, operating within the line and scope of his employment with Bradford, negligently and wantonly swerved his vehicle in front of Sproles', causing Sproles to lose control of her vehicle, collide with a tractor trailer, and sustain fatal injuries. In addition to the negligence and wantonness claims against Rolison, the Miller Action included claims against Bradford for negligence, wantonness, and negligent entrustment. When Miller went to trial in January 2005, a jury found in the plaintiff's favor and awarded a judgment of $3 million against Bradford and Rolison.

Bradford was defended in the Miller Action by both Lexington Insurance Company ("Lexington"), its general liability insurer, and St. Paul Fire and Marine Insurance Company ("St.Paul"), its commercial automobile insurer, pursuant to reservations of rights.² These insurers did not defend Robson. The defendants appealed the Miller jury verdict; however, the state court judge denied Rolison's request for a stay on December 16, 2005, and Miller initiated steps to enforce the judgment against Rolison shortly thereafter. Once this process began, it was followed by a proliferation of litigation, as three more lawsuits were filed in quick succession. The earliest was the instant action ("the Lexington Action"), filed by Lexington against Rolison, Bradford and Miller in this District Court on January 20, 2006, seeking a declaration as to the parties' respective rights and obligations under Lexington's policy of insurance. (See doc. 1.)³

Less than four weeks after the Lexington Action was filed, on February 15, 2006, Rolison filed a lawsuit of his own against Lexington, St. Paul, Royal and others in the Circuit Court of Choctaw County, Alabama, alleging causes of action for breach of contract and bad-faith failure to settle the Miller Action, among others. The crux of Rolison's claims was that he was an insured under Bradford's insurance policies with Lexington, St. Paul and Royal, and that he was aggrieved by those carriers' failure to protect his interests in connection with the Miller Action and the ensuing judgment.⁴ That case was styled Rudolph Rolison v. St. Paul Fire & Marine Insurance Company, et al., CV-06-15 (the "Rolison Action"). St. Paul removed the Rolison Action to this District Court on March 24, 2006, at which time it was placed on the undersigned's docket and assigned Civil Action No. 06-177-WS-B. Rolison promptly moved to remand the Rolison Action to state court, citing both procedural and jurisdictional defects. On May 15, 2006, the undersigned granted the motion and remanded the Rolison Action to Choctaw County Circuit Court, finding that removal was untimely and therefore procedurally defective.⁵

Armed with this procedural background, the undersigned will address the pending motions in this action.⁶

II. Rolison's Motion to Dismiss or Abstain.

A. Positions of the Parties.

As the Court understands it, the crux of Rolison's Motion is that the Court should abstain from deciding the Lexington Action, pending resolution of the overlapping, later-filed Rolison Action. Rolison's position, which Lexington does not challenge, is that the Lexington Action concerns "the exact same factual and/or legal issues" raised in the Rolison Action. (Amended Motion to Dismiss, ¶ 5.) Rolison further asserts that Lexington was filed "merely to beat Rolison to the punch" and "to win the race to the courthouse." (Id. at ¶ 4 & n. 1.) As factual grounds for this objection, Rolison points to a January 10, 2006 letter written by his personal counsel to insurance-appointed counsel for Bradford demanding that Bradford or its insurers post a supersedeas appeal bond on Rolison's behalf to prevent Miller's attorneys from executing the Miller judgment against him during the pendency of the appeal. The January 10 letter stated as follows:

"Let this letter serve as official notice that you have 7 days in which to purchase a bond that would cover Rudolph Rolison in this matter or he will be forced to protect himself."

(Motion to Dismiss, at Exh. D.) Lexington does not dispute that it had actual, contemporaneous notice of the January 10 letter. The Lexington Action was filed just 10 days later. In light of this sequence of events, Rolison urges the Court to apply the criteria of Ameritas Variable Life Ins. Co. v. Roach, 411 F.3d 1328 (11th Cir.2005) and abstain from this declaratory proceeding in favor of the parallel Rolison Action, pursuant to bedrock principles of comity, federalism and efficient use of judicial resources.

Both Bradford and Lexington oppose Rolison's Motion. For its part, Bradford points out that it has filed counterclaims against Lexington in these proceedings seeking monetary relief for breach of contract and bad-faith refusal to settle, thereby removing this action from the Declaratory Judgment Act's zone of discretion and obligating the Court to exercise jurisdiction. Meanwhile, Lexington contests Rolison's characterization of this action as an anticipatory filing and, further, furnishes a separate analysis of the Ameritas factors that, it contends, mandates a finding that abstention is improper. Significantly, neither Bradford nor Lexington disputes Rolison's contention that there is considerable factual and legal overlap between the issues presented here and those in the Rolison Action.

B. Legal Standard.

The Complaint reflects that Lexington's claims in this action sound exclusively in declaratory judgment, and were brought "pursuant to the provisions of 28 U.S.C. § 2201 to determine the rights and duties of the parties." (Complaint, ¶ 7.) But it is well-settled that the Declaratory Judgment Act is properly "understood to confer on federal courts unique and substantial discretion in deciding whether to declare the rights of litigants." Wilton v. Seven Falls Co., 515 U.S. 277, 286, 115 S.Ct. 2137, 132 L.Ed.2d 214 (1995). Indeed, the Supreme Court has "repeatedly characterized the Declaratory Judgment Act as an enabling Act, which confers a discretion on the courts rather than an absolute right upon the litigant." Id. at 287, 115 S.Ct. 2137 (citations omitted). As the Eleventh Circuit recently observed, the Act "only gives the federal courts competence to make a declaration of rights; it does not impose a duty to do so." Ameritas, 411 F.3d at 1330. "The desire of insurance companies ... to receive declarations in federal court on matters of purely state law has no special call on the federal forum." State Auto Ins. Companies v. Summy, 234 F.3d 131, 136 (3rd Cir.2000); see also Prudential Ins. Co. v. Doe, 140 F.3d 785, 789 (8th Cir.1998) ("The Supreme Court's decision in Wilton vests the district courts with broad discretion in deciding whether to hear a declaratory judgment action.").

Consistent with the foregoing, it has long been recognized in this Circuit that a district court has discretion to "decline to entertain a declaratory judgment action on the merits when a pending proceeding in another court will fully resolve the controversy between the parties." Ven-Fuel, Inc. v. Department of the Treasury, 673 F.2d 1194, 1195 (11th Cir.1982). In Ven-Fuel, the plaintiff initiated a declaratory judgment action against the government in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida just one day after the government threatened legal proceedings if the plaintiff did not pay a certain assessed penalty forthwith. A week later, the government filed suit in the District of Massachusetts seeking to recover the penalty, such that there were two pending federal actions addressing precisely the same legal and factual issues. Based on its assessment that the Florida action had been filed "in apparent anticipation of imminent judicial proceedings by the Government" and that this equitable consideration could properly be considered in deciding...