St. Paul Fire & Marine Ins. Co. v. Icard, Merrill, Cullis and Timm, P. A.

• Decision Date: 08 March 1967
• Docket Number: No. 7270,7270
• Citation: 196 So.2d 219
• Court: Florida District Court of Appeals
• Parties: ST. PAUL FIRE AND MARINE INSURANCE COMPANY, Appellant, v. ICARD, MERRILL, CULLIS & TIMM, P.A. d/b/a Icard, Merrill, Cullis & Timm, Appellee.

Page 219

196 So.2d 219

ST. PAUL FIRE AND MARINE INSURANCE COMPANY, Appellant, v. ICARD, MERRILL, CULLIS & TIMM, P.A. d/b/a Icard, Merrill, Cullis & Timm, Appellee.

No. 7270.

District Court of Appeal of Florida, Second District.

March 8, 1967.

Rehearing Denied April 3, 1967.

William T. Keen, of Shackleford, Farrior, Stallings, Glos & Evans, Tampa, for appellant.

Icard, Merrill, Cullis & Timm, Sarasota, for appellee.

PIERCE, Judge.

Appellant insurance company, hereinafter referred to as St. Paul, appeals a summary final judgment entered against it in favor of appellee, hereinafter referred to as Icard, holding St. Paul to be liable upon an indemnity insurance policy and adjudging damages in favor of Icard in the sum of $1,009.75.

Icard, on January 20, 1966, filed suit in the Sarasota County Circuit Court, alleging that St. Paul had theretofore entered into a Lawyer's Professional Liability Contract with Icard, whereby St. Paul had agreed 'to pay on behalf of the Insured (Icard) all sums which the Insured shall become legally obligated to pay as damages Arising out of the performance of professional services for others in the Insured's capacity as a lawyer * * *.' (Emphasis supplied). Icard was a prominent law firm, engaged in the general practice of law in Sarasota. The amended complaint alleged that on January 9, 1963, while the above indemnity insurance was in force, Icard was sued in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida, Tampa Division, by one Mrs. Luise S. Cristiana, as an outgrowth of their previous legal representation of Mrs Cristiani; that Icard complied with all conditions precedent contained in the policy, but that St. Paul failed or refused to defend said suit; that Icard was therefore forced to retain the services of another attorney in defense of the Cristiani suit, which suit was subsequently dismissed and the dismissal affirmed on appeal; and that because thereof Icard had expended costs, including attorney's fees, both in the Cristiani suit and also in the instant suit.

By answer, St. Paul admitted all of the material averments of the amended complaint except that it denied that Icard was covered by the indemnity policy in defending the Cristiani suit.

Both Icard and St. Paul filed respective motions for summary judgment based on the pleadings of the parties, and upon hearing the Circuit Judge granted Icard's motion and denied St. Paul's motion, and entered judgment for Icard against St. Paul in the said sum of $1,009.75, the amount agreed upon by the parties as damages in the event damages should be adjudged.

The sole point relied upon by St. Paul, both in the trial Court and this Court, and which is the crux of this case, pertains to that provision of the policy, under the head of 'Exclusions,' which says: 'This Policy Does Not Apply: * * * to any dishonest, fraudulent, criminal or malicious act or omission of the Insured, any partner or employee * * *.' St. Paul contends that the allegations of the complaint in the Cristiani suit fell within the purview of the aforesaid exclusionary provision, in that the 'acts or omissions' of Icard in representing Mrs. Cristiani were either 'dishonest, fraudulent, criminal or malicious.' This necessarily calls for examination of the Cristiani complaint filed against Icard.

The Cristiani complaint was six pages long, signed by Mrs. Cristiani only, with no attorney at law mentioned therein or signing the same, and we will not presume to review it in detail. It abounds in unnecessary prolixity, is replete with unsupported accusations and innuendos, and is patently the product of a bitter and vituperative bent of mind. It is rife in conclusions of unsavory and unprofessional concuct on the part, not only of Icard, but also of her husband, Daviso R. Cristiani, and her husband's lawyer, Richard K. Doyle, and also two other members of the Sarasota bar, George Dietz and Charles Early. The members of the Icard law firm who were the particular objects of her castigation were Messrs. William W. Merrill and Curtis J. Timm, who, together with Mr. Doyle, were actually, in her language, 'tools of the local bar association' in a conspiracy to punish her and 'obtain revenge' against her 'by impeding, hindering, obstructing and defeating the due course of justice and equal protection of the law.' Thus she extended her area of rancorous maledictions to encompass the entire local bar, of which Mr. Icard was President of the Sarasota County Bar Association.

Separating the chaff from the wheat, or more precisely filtering the 'facts' from the redundant morass of invectives, what Mrs. Cristiani was apparently trying to say in her complaint was that she employed Icard's firm to represent her in a suit against her husband for 'property disposition, alimony, support money and custody' and that in the process of such representation her attorneys 'conspired' with her husband and her husband's attorney to 'force' her to agree to an unfavorable 'dictatorial settlement' to forfeit for herself and son 'all claim to alimony and support money' and 'to agree to no decision on custody'; that in furtherance thereof the 'conspirators' agreed among themselves to delay prosecution of said suit so that the mortgage payments on the property she owned jointly with her husband would become delinquent and 'thus apply foreclosure pressure' to 'force' her to agree to the supposed settlement; that she was delayed in receiving temporary support payments of $250.00 per month, thereby being without funds to 'meet said mortgage payments and thus prevent foreclosure'; that the 'conspirators' contrived to suppress evidence unfavorable to her husband or favorable to her; that her attorneys 'aided' in having her served with process in the mortgage foreclosure suit after she...