Yingling v. Phillips

• Decision Date: 06 December 1985
• Parties: John L. YINGLING v. Joseph PHILLIPS, et al. 287 Sept. Term 1985.
• Court: Court of Special Appeals of Maryland

Page 451

65 Md.App. 451

501 A.2d 87

John L. YINGLING v. Joseph PHILLIPS, et al.

287 Sept. Term 1985.

Court of Special Appeals of Maryland.

Dec. 6, 1985.

Robert C. Verderaime (Verderaime & DuBois, P.A. on brief), Baltimore, for appellant.

Daniel Karp (Allen, Thieblot & Alexander on brief), Baltimore, for appellee, MAIF.

Timothy E. Fizer (A. Douglas Owens on brief), Baltimore, for appellee, GEICO.

George M. Church (Whiteford, Taylor, Preston, Trimble & Johnston on brief), Baltimore, for appellees, Phillips and Prudential Property & Cas. Ins. Co.

Argued before GARRITY, ADKINS, and KARWACKI, JJ.

ADKINS, Judge.

Before us is the question of when the statute of limitations begins to run against a personal injury plaintiff who asserts claims that various insurers have uninsured motorist coverage with respect to the accident that caused his injuries. The question is not free from difficulty. As one commentator has put it, "[t]here is no clear basis for stating when a statute of limitations begins to run in regard to uninsured motorist claims." 1 A. Widiss, Uninsured and Underinsured Motorist Insurance, § 7.12 (2d ed. 1985).

The personal injury plaintiff is appellant, John L. Yingling (Yingling). On December 17, 1978, Yingling was operating a vehicle owned by appellee Joseph Phillips (Phillips) and insured by appellee Prudential Property and Casualty Insurance Company (Prudential). Yingling did not own a motor vehicle, did not reside with any relative who owned one, and did not own any automobile liability insurance. Two tires on the Phillips vehicle went flat and Yingling pulled to the shoulder of the road to change them. A vehicle operated by Thomas Wood, owned by appellee Mary Wood (Wood), and insured by appellee Government Employees Insurance Company (GEICO) pulled off behind the Yingling-Phillips vehicle to assist in the operation. A vehicle operated by Linda Miller (Miller) and owned by National Car Rental Systems, Inc. (National) struck Yingling. National's insurer was Travelers Insurance Company (Travelers).

On May 2, 1979, Yingling filed suit against Miller and National. National obtained summary judgment in its favor because on the date of the accident Miller was not the lessee of its vehicle and did not have permission to use it. Although that judgment was made final under former Md. Rule 605 a, no appeal was taken from it. This raised a question as to Miller's status as an uninsured motorist. In an apparent effort to resolve this and other problems, Prudential and Phillips on September 5, 1980, filed a declaratory judgment action against Yingling, National, Travelers Miller, and appellee Maryland Automobile Insurance Fund (MAIF), to which GEICO was added on March 19, 1981. The action sought, inter alia, declarations that (1) Yingling was not an insured under Prudential's policy and, therefore, not entitled to coverage under the uninsured motorist coverage of that policy; (2) Miller was covered by the Travelers' policy; or in the alternative, (3) Yingling was entitled to uninsured motorist coverage under the GEICO policy; or, in the still further alternative, (4) that MAIF was liable. Yingling, MAIF, and GEICO answered this suit. National's and Travelers' motions raising preliminary objection were granted and the action was dismissed as to them, via a judgment made final under Md.Rule 605 a. Again, no appeal was taken. On March 4, 1982, after various motions for summary judgment had been filed but not decided, Prudential and Phillips dismissed the declaratory judgment action without prejudice. Former Md. Rule 541 a.1.

We now return to the tort action of Yingling v. Miller. In that case Yingling obtained a $99,240.15 judgment against Miller on June 8, 1983. None of the appellees appeared to defend the action. A little over a year later--on July 25, 1984--Yingling brought the action that is the subject of this appeal. He sued Phillips, Prudential, National, Travelers, Miller, Wood, GEICO, and MAIF in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City asserting that there was a dispute among the several insurers as to which of them was liable for coverage to Miller or Yingling and as to which was liable to pay his judgment against Miller. He alleged that all the insurers had refused to defend Miller and that each had refused to pay any part of his judgment against her. He sought declarations that Miller was covered by Travelers' policy or that Miller was uninsured (with consequent responsibility on MAIF). He also asked the court to declare that he was covered either by the GEICO or Prudential policies or both.

A plethora of responses followed. National and Travelers moved to dismiss on the ground, inter alia, that the judgment in favor of National in Yingling v. Miller and the judgments in favor of both in the first declaratory judgment action were res judicata. The court granted those motions. No question of the propriety of that action is raised on appeal.

MAIF, Wood, and GEICO all moved to dismiss on the ground that Yingling's declaratory judgment action was barred by the three-year statute of limitations contained in Maryland Code, Courts and Jud. Proceedings Art., § 5-101. By their reckoning Yingling's cause of action relative to insurance coverage accrued on September 5, 1980, when Prudential and Phillips filed the first declaratory judgment suit because it was then that Yingling was made aware that all the insurers had denied or probably would deny coverage. Thus, according to them, Yingling's July 25, 1984, declaratory judgment action was untimely. Prudential and Phillips moved for summary judgment on the ground of limitations. They contended that limitations began to run on December 17, 1978, the date of Yingling's accident. In the alternative they argued that the critical date was May 7, 1980, because on that date Yingling's lawyer had written Prudential, demanding that it supply a defense. To all this Yingling retorted that limitations did not begin to run until June 8, 1983, the date he obtained judgment against Miller in the tort action. In his view, he could not bring suit against the insurers until after that date.

The trial judge opined that Yingling had "standing" to sue the insurers before he obtained the tort judgment against Miller. He concluded that on September 5, 1980--the date of filing of the first declaratory judgment suit--Yingling had knowledge that all the insurers disclaimed liability. Because of that, he held that Yingling's declaratory judgment action was barred by limitations. He granted the various defense motions and dismissed the suit.

We are now faced with five choices as to when limitations began to run on Yingling's claims against the insurers. In chronological order they are:

1. December 17, 1978--the date of the accident (principal contention of Prudential and Phillips).

2. May 7, 1980--the date Yingling's lawyer wrote Prudential demanding that it supply a defense for Phillips (alternative contention of Prudential and Phillips).

3. September 5, 1980--the date the first declaratory action was filed (the trial judge's holding; contentions of MAIF, GEICO, and Wood).

4. March 4, 1982--the date the first declaratory action was dismissed (alternative contention of Yingling).

5. June 8, 1983--the date Yingling obtained judgment against Miller (principal contention of Yingling). We affirm the judgment below, accepting the arguments of MAIF, GEICO, and Wood. In doing so, we reject Yingling's principal contention and hold that his alternative contention is not before us. Because of our conclusion that on the facts of this case the first declaratory judgment action is the critical factor, we need not decide whether the earlier dates proposed by Prudential and Phillips triggered the running of the statute. We explain, turning first to Yingling's assertion that the crucial date is June 8, 1983.

Our first concern must be to determine when Yingling's cause of action against the insurers accrued. The three-year period prescribed by § 5-101 runs from the date a cause of action accrues, so determination of that date is critical. Lutheran Hospital v. Levy, 60 Md.App. 227, 232, 482 A.2d 23 (1984), cert. denied, 302 Md. 288, 487 A.2d 292 (1985).

Yingling reasserts his argument below, that his cause of action against the insured did not accrue until June 8, 1983, when he obtained his tort judgment against Miller. He posits that he "would have to establish a cause of action against Miller before the coverage question became a viable one." We decline to adopt that position as a rule of law.

In Bond v. Pennsylvania National Mutual Casualty Insurance Co., 289 Md. 379, 424 A.2d 765 (1981), a passenger who had been injured in an automobile accident sued inter alia, various insurance companies seeking declarations as to coverage. It appears that the declaratory judgment action was brought before there was any judgment in the tort action. The Court of Appeals addressed the merits of the coverage question and it may be, as some of the appellees here contend, that this implicitly recognized the propriety of bringing such a declaratory judgment action before termination of the tort action. It may equally well be that the issue simply was not raised; nowhere in the opinion is it mentioned.

More nearly in point is Reese v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co., 285 Md. 548, 403 A.2d 1229 (1979). There, an insured, Reese, brought a breach of contract action against his insurer, State Farm. Reese alleged that the party responsible for the automobile accident in which he had been injured was uninsured and that State Farm had denied coverage under the policy's uninsured motorist endorsement. State Farm argued that a condition precedent to the suit was Reese's recovery of a judgment against the uninsured motorist. The Court of Appeals squarely rejected that contention. It held "that an insured need not, as a condition for recovery against his insurer under an insured motorist's...