United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
No. 02-1143
SEACO INSURANCE COMPANY,
Plaintiff, Appellee,
v.
LAURA DAVIS-IRISH,
Defendant, Appellant.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF MAINE
[Hon. D. Brock Hornby, U.S. District Judge]
Before
Selya, Circuit Judge,
Gibson* and Greenberg,** Senior Circuit Judges.
William D. Robitzek, with whom Paul F. Macri and Berman &
Simmons, P.A. were on brief, for appellant.
John S. Whitman, with whom Richardson, Whitman, Large & Badger
was on brief, for appellee.
Randall B. Weill and Preti, Flaherty, Beliveau, Pachios &
Haley, LLC on brief for National Union Fire Insurance Company,
amicus curiae.
August 20, 2002
____________
*Of the Eighth Circuit, sitting by designation.
**Of the Third Circuit, sitting by designation.
Selya, Circuit Judge. This appeal arises out of an
automobile accident in which a vehicle operated by an uninsured
motorist collided with a vehicle driven by Lorraine Wark. The
negligence of the uninsured motorist was the principal cause of the
accident. A passenger in Wark's vehicle, appellant Laura Davis-
Irish, sustained serious injuries. At the time of the crash,
Davis-Irish was in the course of her employment with Garrand &
Company (Garrand).
Garrand owned a vehicle, not involved in the accident,1
for which it had purchased a business auto policy underwritten by
Seaco Insurance Company (Seaco). That policy contained uninsured
motorist (UM) coverage. The UM endorsement delineated who was
insured for purposes of that coverage. It read in pertinent part:
B. Who Is An Insured
1. You.
2. If you are an individual, any
"family member".
3. Anyone else "occupying" a
covered "auto" or a temporary
substitute for a covered "auto".
The covered "auto" must be out
of service because of its
breakdown, repair, servicing,
loss or destruction.
4. Anyone for damages he or she
is entitled to recover because
1
Despite the fact that it owned a vehicle, Garrand generally
required its employees to use their own cars for business travel.
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of "bodily injury" sustained by
another "insured".
The policy's declaration page lists the named insured as "Garrand
& Company, Inc." and the form of business as "Corporation". The
first page of the policy form explains that, throughout the policy,
the word "you" refers to the named insured shown in the
declarations.
Undeterred by the seemingly clear definition of the key
pronoun ("you"), the appellant sought compensation for her injuries
under paragraph 1 of the UM endorsement. She posited that "you,"
as used in this endorsement, reasonably could be understood to
include Garrand's employees while acting in the course of their
employment. Seaco disagreed. It not only disclaimed coverage for
the appellant's injuries but also brought a diversity action in
Maine's federal district court seeking a declaratory judgment as to
whether the appellant was an insured for purposes of the UM
endorsement. The parties stipulated to the critical facts and then
cross-moved for summary judgment. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 56. The
district court granted Seaco's motion and denied the appellant's.2
Seaco Ins. Co. v. Davis-Irish, 180 F. Supp. 2d 235 (D. Me. 2002).
This appeal followed.
2
The court also denied the appellant's request to certify the
coverage question to the Maine Supreme Judicial Court. That order
is not challenged on appeal.
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We need not tarry. The district court's opinion rests on
its conclusion that "you," as used in the UM endorsement, is
unambiguous and reasonably can be understood to refer only to
Garrand. See id. at 236-37. Having carefully considered the
record, the policy language, the briefs, and the parties'
arguments, we conclude, without serious question, that the district
court was correct. We have said before, and today reaffirm, that
when a lower court accurately takes the measure of a case and
articulates a cogent rationale, it serves no useful purpose for a
reviewing court to write at length. See, e.g., Maurice v. State
Farm Mut. Auto Ins. Co. 235 F.3d 7, 9-10 (1st Cir. 2000); Chico-
Velez v. Roche Prods., Inc., 139 F.3d 56, 58 (1st Cir. 1995);
Lawton v. State Mut. Life Assur. Co., 101 F.3d 218, 220 (1st Cir.
1996); Ayala v. Union de Tronquistas de P.R., 74 F.3d 344, 345 (1st
Cir. 1996); In re San Juan Dupont Plaza Hotel Fire Litig., 989 F.2d
36, 38 (1st Cir. 1993). Because this is such a case, we affirm the
district court's judgment for substantially the reasons elucidated
in that court's thoughtful opinion. We add only three brief
comments.
First: The appellant alleges that the policy provision
quoted above is ambiguous and should therefore be construed against
Seaco. The appellant's premise is correct in the sense that, under
Maine law, ambiguous language in an insurance policy ordinarily is
construed against the insurer. E.g., Pine Ridge Realty, Inc. v.
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Mass. Bay Ins. Co., 752 A.2d 595, 600-01 (Me. 2000); Union Mut.
Fire Ins. Co. v. Commercial Union Ins. Co., 521 A.2d 308, 310 (Me.
1987). But that premise has no application here. The policy
language to which the appellant adverts simply is not ambiguous.
See Alternative Energy, Inc. v. St. Paul Fire & Marine Ins. Co.,
267 F.3d 30, 35 (1st Cir. 2001) ("A contract need not negate every
possible construction of its terms in order to be unambiguous.")
(citation omitted); see also Colford v. Chubb Ins Co., 687 A.2d
609, 614 (Me. 1996) (holding that the contra proferentem principle
does not mean that the insured must prevail every time that the
insured and the insurer "disagree on the meaning of the contract").
Ambiguity, like beauty, may lie solely in the eye of the beholder
– and so it is here.
Second: The appellant also asservates that Seaco's
definition of "you" renders the disputed provision – specifically,
numbered paragraphs 1 and 2 of that provision – superfluous. That
asserveration erroneously assumes that this type of policy is
issued exclusively to corporations. The contrary is true. The
insurance industry often uses standard forms, and this is a
standard form, multi-purpose business auto policy designed for
issuance to a variety of insurable entities. The purchaser (and,
thus, the named insured) may be a corporation, a partnership, or an
individual doing business as a sole proprietor. There is nothing
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sinister about an insurer's use of such a "one size fits all"
policy form.
Not surprisingly, the provisions of such a policy
function somewhat differently depending upon the identity and
status of the named insured. When the named insured is an
individual, paragraphs 1 and 2 of the UM endorsement are fully
operative. The fact that those paragraphs, by their plain
language, are not apposite when the named insured is a corporation
does not afford us license to stretch the words of the policy and
give them an unintended effect. See Langer v. U.S. Fid. & Guar.
Co., 552 A.2d 20, 22 (Me. 1988) (declining to give a "strained and
unnatural construction" to a provision in a standard business auto
policy). In short, the appellant's position confuses superfluity
with inapplicability.
Third: The appellant relies heavily on the Ohio Supreme
Court's decision in Scott-Pontzer v. Liberty Mutual Fire Ins. Co.,
710 N.E. 2d 1116 (Ohio 1999). That court examined the language of
a substantially similar UM endorsement and determined that the term
"you" was ambiguous. Id. at 1119. The court stated:
It would be nonsensical to limit protection
solely to a corporate entity, since a
corporation, itself, cannot occupy an
automobile, suffer bodily injury or death, or
operate a motor vehicle. Here, naming the
corporation as the insured is meaningless
unless the coverage extends to some person or
persons – including to the corporation's
employees.
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Id.
We consider Scott-Pontzer an anomaly and we therefore
decline to follow it. We have two main reasons for this view. We
list them in ascending order of importance.
First, the Scott-Pontzer court was sharply divided (this
was a 4-3 decision), and the majority opinion has had a rude
reception in its birthplace. The Ohio legislature lost little time
in superseding it due to its destabilizing effect on the automobile
insurance market. See Ohio Rev. Code Ann. § 3937.18 (Anderson
2002). Moreover, the majority opinion has come under fire in the
Ohio courts. See, e.g., Bianchi v. Moore, 2001 Ohio App. LEXIS
2105, at *20-21 (May 11, 2001).
Second, the majority opinion in Scott-Pontzer appears to
deviate from well-established tenets of contract interpretation.
The Maine courts have held, with a regularity bordering on the
monotonous, that contracts of insurance ought to be construed in a
manner consistent with the intent of the parties. See, e.g., Pine
Ridge, 752 A.2d at 601 (explaining that "[t]he touchstone of
contract interpretation is the intent of the parties"). The Ohio
Supreme Court consciously departed from this tenet. See Scott-
Pontzer, 710 N.E. 2d at 1120 (conceding that the conclusion reached
by the majority "may be viewed by some as a result that was not
intended by the parities to the insurance contract"). Inasmuch as
Maine law controls in this diversity case, see Crellin Tech., Inc.
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v. Equipmentlease Corp., 18 F.3d 1, 4 (1st Cir. 1994), adherence to
Scott-Pontzer would be improvident. See Daigle v. Maine Med.
Ctr., 14 F.3d 684, 689 (1st Cir. 1994) (describing the proper role
of a federal court sitting in diversity jurisdiction).
We need go no further. For the reasons stated both here
and in the opinion below, we reject the appellant's suggested
interpretation of the UM endorsement. As the district court
explained, that interpretation "is not a reasonable reading of the
[policy] language, and runs contrary to the thrust of Maine . . .
precedent." Seaco Ins., 180 F. Supp. 2d at 237.
Affirmed.
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