United Services Life Insurance Company v. Delaney, A-10671

• Decision Date: 01 December 1965
• Docket Number: No. A-10671,A-10671
• Citation: 396 S.W.2d 855
• Parties: UNITED SERVICES LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY, Petitioner, v. Joan Flores DELANEY, Respondent.
• Court: Texas Supreme Court

Page 855

396 S.W.2d 855

UNITED SERVICES LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY, Petitioner, v. Joan Flores DELANEY, Respondent.

No. A-10671.

Supreme Court of Texas.

Dec. 1, 1965.

Boyle, Wheeler, Gresham, Davis & Gregory, San Antonio, for petitioner.

Horace P. Shelton, Jr., San Antonio, for respondent.

NORVELL, Justice.

This is a suit for a declaratory judgment brought under the provisions of the Uniform Declaratory Judgments Act (Article 2524-1, Vernon's Ann.Tex.Stats.) by United Services Life Insurance Company against Joan Flores Delaney, the beneficiary named in an insurance policy issued by United Services covering the life of her deceased husband, Robert H. Delaney. The trial court dismissed the suit for want of jurisdiction. The Court of Civil Appeals affirmed, holding that under the facts and circumstances of this case, the suit was one instituted for the purpose of procuring an advisory opinion and hence was a proceeding over which the judicial branch of government had no jurisdiction. 386 S.W.2d 648. We affirm the judgments of the lower courts.

History of the Litigation

The litigation of which the present suit is a phase is highly involved, but a recitation of the circumstances that brought about the filing of the present proceedings is essential to an understanding of the jurisdictional problem presented.

The insurance policy which is the subject matter of this suit was issued by petitioner United Services on October 1, 1957. On May 8, 1959, the insured, Lieutenant Robert H. Delaney, died of injuries received as the pilot and only occupant of an aircraft owned and operated by the United States government. The policy contained the following clause:

'Limitation Due to Aviation Hazard'

'If this policy shall become a claim by death of the insured due to any service, training, travel, flight, ascent or descent in, on, or from any species of aircraft at anytime, except death resulting from travel as a passenger on an aircraft owned and operated by the United States Government or as a passenger on a scheduled passenger air service regularly offered between specified airports, the liability of the company under this policy shall be limited to the premiums paid hereunder or to the then net reserve at time of death, if greater; any provision in this policy to the contrary notwithstanding.'

The company asserted that this limitation was applicable to the case and denied liability. Mrs. Delaney thereupon filed suit in the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas. On December 27, 1961, the judge of said court handed down his opinion supporting the proposition that Lieutenant Delaney's death was covered by the policy. 201 F.Supp. 25. Judgment was rendered awarding Mrs. Delaney a recovery.

In the course of his opinion the District Judge said:

'The plaintiff claims that she is entitled to judgment, because when the insured was killed, he was a 'passenger' in an aircraft owned and operated by the United States government; therefore, his death was clearly within one of the exceptions to the aviation rider. The case of Continental Casualty Co. v. Warren (1953), 152 Tex. 164, 254 S.W.2d 762, 764, decided by the Supreme Court of Texas, is cited in support of that position. There, the Court, in holding that the pilot was covered by a policy indemnifying the insured for loss resulting from injury sustained in consequence of 'riding as a passenger' in a specified airplane owned by the insured and piloted by an authorized person, said that the words 'as a passenger' could be construed to mean 'as an occupant,' and concluded that the special rule of construction governing insurance cases requires that exceptions and words of limitations be strictly construed against the insurer, and favors a solution that would include rather than exclude the pilot. There is no language in the aviation rider involved herein which would compel a different conclusion, and 'the intent of the policy to exclude the pilot is not so certain as to make it wholly unreasonable to say that he was included."

Upon appeal to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, the case was referred to a panel of three judges and the judgment of the District Court was affirmed by a vote of two to one. 308 F.2d 484 (1962). The majority agreed with the District Court and held that, 'After a close study of that case (Continental Casualty Co. v. Warren, 152 Tex. 164, 254 S.W.2d 762, 1953) we conclude that the principles of law established by it control the decision of this case and we affirm the judgment of the court below.' The dissenting judge was of the opinion that the Delaney case could be distinguished from Warren. It is evident, however, that he did not consider that warren was a sound decision. He said:

'I would hold the parties to the plain meaning of everyday words used in their ordinary sense in an unambiguous contract. I decline to aid and abet in the verbocide of the good word 'passenger".

Upon rehearing, this case was considered by the Court of Appeals en banc, along with the case of Paul Revere Life Insurance Company v. First National Bank, Administrator, 5 Cir., 328 F.2d 483. By a vote of five to four, the Court, relying upon Railroad Commission of Texas v. Pullman Co., 312 U.S. 496, 61 S.Ct. 643, 85 L.Ed. 971, and Louisiana Power & Light Co. v. City of Thibodaux, 360 U.S. 25, 79 S.Ct. 1070, 3 L.Ed.2d 1058, invoked the so-called 'abstention doctrine'. In concluding its opinion the Court said:

'(E)ach of the appellants can, and should, promptly initiate a proceeding in a Texas court seeking a declaratory judgment for the determining of the meaning of the pertinent clauses of the respective insurance contracts, with a review of such judgment by a court of last resort of the State of Texas.

'An order will be entered in each of the appeals staying further proceedings in this Court until the courts of Texas shall have been afforded an opportunity to determine the issues to be submitted. This Court will retain jurisdiction for the purpose of taking such further action as may be required.'

In the Paul Revere Life Insurance Company case, the Supreme Court of the United States denied a petition for certiorari, 377 U.S. 935, 84 S.Ct. 1335, 12 L.Ed.2d 798. Mr. Justice Douglas was in favor of granting the writ. ¹

The minority took the position that, 'The mandate from Congress that we decide diversity cases, Title 28 U.S.C.A., § 1332; Meredith v. City of Winter Haven, 1943, 320 U.S. 228, 64 S.Ct. 7, 88 L.Ed. 9, makes plain our duty to decide these matters,' and pointed our that Texas, unlike Florida, has made no provisions for the certification by federal courts of doubtful questions to its Supreme Court for resolution. Judge John R. Brown filed a special concurring opinion in answer to the dissent in which he expressed the opinion that the Uniform Declaratory Judgments Act, Art. 2524-1, provides a Texas solution for the problem of allowing a state court to decide a question of Texas law involved in a case pending in the federal Court of Appeals.

opinion

The question of whether or not the federal court should stay its hand in diversity cases ² pending state action is a federal question which was settled insofar as this case is concerned by the action of the Supreme Court of the United States in denying the petition for certiorari in the Paul Revere Life Insurance Case. ³

There are serious difficulties on the state side of the question. The Uniform Declaratory Judgments Act (Article 2524-1) provides a plenary remedy. A court having jurisdiction to render a declaratory judgment has power to determine issues of fact, issues of state law and issues of federal law if such questions be involved in the particular case. It was not intended to provide for the piecemeal trial of a lawsuit. It is the obvious purpose of the federal Court of Appeals to secure a decision upon an issue of state law so that it may thereafter render a final judgment between the parties. See, East Coast Lumber Terminal, Inc. v. Town of Babylon, 2 Cir., 174 F.2d 106, 8 A.L.R.2d 1219 (1949), 73 Harvard L.Rev. 1358, 1. c. 1360. We have a situation therefore in which a cause or at least portions thereof are pending in two courts one of which (the state court) is not empowered to render a final enforceable judgment. The Declaratory Judgment procedure is ill adapted to accomplish the objective sought by the federal appellate court. ⁴

From a state standpoint, a fatal impediment to the Texas court's assuming jurisdiction of this litigation in the present posture of the case arises from constitutional considerations. In Douglas Oil Co. v. State (Whiteside case), ⁵ 81 S.W.2d 1064 (Tex.Civ.App.1935), Chief Justice McClendon writing for the Austin Court of Civil Appeals, discussed at some length the nature and history of advisory opinions. He pointed out that in a few states advisory opinions have been given by judicial tribunals in the absence of constitutional authority and that in a small number of states advisory opinions have been given without either supporting constitutional or statutory authorization. However, the opinion stated that:

'The giving of advisory opinions is generally recognized as a nonjudicial function; and except as noted above has not been practiced in any of the American states. An authorizing provision was proposed in the Federal Constitutional Convention, but was defeated; and the Supreme Court of the United States has always declined to recognize it as within its constituent authority. This view, held also by the state courts except as noted, is a necessary conclusion from the constitutional separation of the powers of government into the three departments, executive, legislative, and judicial, and the essentially implicit deduction that, absent express constitutional authorization, none of these departments may exercise any of the powers inherently pertaining to another.'

There are numerous Texas authorities which hold that the giving of advisory opinions is not...