Johnson v. Johnson ( 2022 )

United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
No. 19-1719
ALTHEA JOHNSON, individually and as Heir and Natural Guardian of
Carlton Johnson; CARLTON JOHNSON,
Plaintiffs, Appellants,
v.
HORACE JOHNSON; STATE ROAD AUTO SALES, INC.;
ARBELLA MUTUAL INSURANCE COMPANY,
Defendants, Appellees.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF RHODE ISLAND
[Hon. John J. McConnell, Jr., U.S. District Judge]
Before
Thompson, Stahl, and Barron,
Circuit Judges.
Ronald J. Resmini, with whom Law Offices of Ronald J. Resmini,
Ltd. was on brief, for appellants.
Thomas A. Pursley, with whom Stephen E. Navega, II and Lynch
& Lynch were on brief, for appellee Arbella Mutual Insurance.
Lisa De Mari, with whom Heffernan & De Mari, P.C. was on
 While this case was argued to a panel that included Judge
Stahl, he did not participate in the issuance of this opinion. The
remaining two panelists therefore issued this opinion pursuant to
28 U.S.C. § 46(d).
brief, for appellees Horace Johnson and State Road Auto Sales.
January 19, 2022
THOMPSON, Circuit Judge. This case has its genesis in
a car accident involving Horace Johnson ("Horace"), the driver,
and Horace's cousin, Carlton Johnson ("Carlton"), the sole
passenger in the car Horace was driving.1 A lawsuit against Horace,
his insurer, and the company from which Horace had leased the
vehicle followed;2 Carlton and Carlton's mother, individually and
on Carlton's behalf, sued to recover damages for the serious
injuries Carlton sustained in the accident.3 The United States
District Court for the District of Rhode Island granted summary
judgment on all claims, and Carlton appealed. The case was briefed
and argued to us in due course on February 4, 2020. As we'll
explain in more detail in the pages to come, a critical component
of one of the appellate issues concerned an important and unsettled
matter of Rhode Island law, so on March 13, 2020, we certified a
question to the Rhode Island Supreme Court pursuant to Rule 6 of
Rhode Island's Rules of Appellate Procedure. See Johnson v.
Johnson, 952 F.3d 376, 377 (1st Cir. 2020), certified question
1For clarity, we use the parties' first names throughout our
opinion; as always, we mean no disrespect.
2 The case began in the Rhode Island state court system, but
the defendants (appellees here) removed it to federal court
pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §§ 1332, 1441.
3 Carlton's mother, Althea (who is referred to in this record
as both "Althea" and "Altima"), sought to recover damages in her
individual capacity via loss of consortium and intentional
infliction of emotional distress claims. Those claims were
dismissed below, but their dismissal is not challenged on appeal.
In today's opinion, for the sake of simplicity, we refer to
appellants collectively as "Carlton."
- 3 -
answered, No. 2020-105-M.P., 2021 WL 5996413 (R.I. Dec. 20, 2021).
On December 20, 2021, the Rhode Island Supreme Court supplied its
answer. See Johnson, 2021 WL 5996413, at *5. Equipped with that,
we are now in a position to render our opinion on Carlton's appeal.
In doing so, we'll follow our customary route of laying
out the relevant facts of the case (reproduced here based in large
part on our Certification Order), explaining what happened below,
then tackling the arguments advanced on appeal. Here's the
spoiler, though: This will be an affirmance across the board.
FACTS AND TRAVEL
The facts in this case are not contested; regardless, we
always recount them in the light most favorable to the nonmovant
(here, that's Carlton), and we will "resolv[e] all reasonable
inferences in his favor, consistent with record support."4 Brader
v. Biogen Inc., 983 F.3d 39, 44 (1st Cir. 2020).
On December 17, 2017, Horace, a Massachusetts resident,
was driving in Providence, Rhode Island with Carlton, a Rhode
Island resident who was then 28 years old, as Horace's passenger.
The car struck a utility pole, and both Horace and Carlton were
4 We pause to observe what, exactly, the scope of the record
actually is here. On appeal, Carlton submitted and refers to
materials that were not part of the summary-judgment record below.
We look only to the record as it appeared before the district
court. See, e.g., CMI Cap. Mkt. Inv., LLC v. Gonzalez-Toro, 520
F.3d 58, 61 (1st Cir. 2008) (explaining that "on appeal from
summary judgment, we consider the same record that was before the
district court").
- 4 -
seriously injured. Horace was driving a car leased to him by State
Road Auto Sales ("State Road"), and he was insured by Arbella
Mutual Insurance Company ("Arbella") under an automobile insurance
policy that provided a limit of $100,000 of bodily injury coverage
for guest occupants injured in accidents outside Massachusetts.5
On January 25, 2018, just over a month after the December
car accident, Carlton's counsel sent an "Asermely Demand" letter
to Arbella demanding a settlement for his bodily injury claims at
the $100,000 policy limit. In the demand letter, Carlton cited
Rhode Island's Rejected Settlement Offer Interest Statute, R.I.
Gen. Laws §§ 27-7-2.1 & 27-7-2.2, as well as Asermely v. Allstate
Ins. Co., 728 A.2d 461 (R.I. 1999), and DeMarco v. Travelers Ins.
Co., 26 A.3d 585 (R.I. 2011), and he indicated he would accept the
policy limit (assuming it was indeed the maximum insurance
available under Carlton's coverage). Arbella investigated, then,
in a letter dated February 28, 2018, more than thirty days later,
Arbella sent a response to Carlton's counsel in which Arbella
accepted Carlton's demand to settle for the policy limits of
$100,000.
Very soon after that, though, on March 6, 2018, Carlton
and his mother filed a complaint (initially in Rhode Island state
court, as previously mentioned) in which they alleged three counts,
5 We will sometimes refer to Horace, Arbella, and State Road
collectively as "the appellees," when appropriate.
- 5 -
two of which are pertinent to this appeal:6 Count I pointed to
the negligence of the appellees and sought damages for Carlton's
"severe personal injuries," which required hospitalization,
medical treatment, home health care, rehab, lost wages, loss of
consortium, permanent injuries, and loss of earning capacity; and
Count III alleged that Arbella disregarded Rhode Island insurance
settlement law, and that it violated and breached various aspects
of Massachusetts insurance settlement law, too.
In time, the appellees moved for summary judgment,
arguing, inter alia, that Arbella and Carlton had entered into a
binding settlement agreement, Rhode Island General Laws Section
27-7-2.2 (which requires that a "written [settlement] offer shall
be presumed to have been rejected if the insurer does not respond
in writing within a period of thirty (30) days") did not apply
because Carlton hadn't filed a civil action before the settlement
agreement was formed, and Arbella had not engaged in any deceptive
or unfair practices. In his opposition, Carlton, of course, took
the opposite stance on all of this.
In granting the summary-judgment motion in the
appellees' favor, as is relevant to our tasks today, the district
court rejected Carlton's argument that Section 27-7-2.2 rendered
Arbella's acceptance of the settlement offer invalid because it
6 Count II staked out Althea's claims, but, as previously
mentioned, the dismissal of those claims wasn't challenged here.
- 6 -
occurred more than the statutorily prescribed thirty days after
the offer. See Johnson v. Johnson, No. CV 18-212-JJM-PAS, 2019 WL
2929766, at *3 (D.R.I. July 8, 2019). Rather, the district court
determined that the statute's "[i]n any civil action" language
requires that a legal proceeding in court needs to be underway to
trigger the statute's application. Id. Since Carlton did not
file suit until after the settlement-offer-and-acceptance episode,
the district court reasoned, the statute did not apply, and the
parties had otherwise entered into a valid settlement contract for
policy limits, meaning Carlton's Count I claims could not be
brought in court. Id.As to Count III's various Rhode Island and Massachusetts
state law unfair insurance practices allegations, the district
court was similarly unpersuaded. There was no Rhode Island state
law claim under Asermely, 728 A.2d at 464, the district court
explained: "[A]lthough it requires insurance companies to
'consider seriously a plaintiff's reasonable offer to settle
within the policy limits' as part of their fiduciary duty, it is
clear here that Arbella did seriously consider Carlton's offer as
they ultimately accepted it about two and a half months after the
collision and thirty-two days after receiving the demand." Id.So, "[b]y settling with Carlton for the policy limit a few months
after the accident date, and a month after the initial demand
. . . , Arbella engaged in timely and meaningful settlement
- 7 -
negotiations and thus fulfilled their common law and statutory
duties." Id. Carlton's claim based on Massachusetts state law
unfair settlement practices met a similar fate, with the district
court reasoning that the record was devoid of the requisite pre-
suit written demand for relief. Id. at *4 (citing Mass. Gen. Laws
ch. 93A, § 9(3) ("At least thirty days prior to the filing of any
such action, a written demand for relief . . . reasonably
describing the unfair or deceptive act or practice relied
upon . . . shall be mailed or delivered to any prospective
respondent.")).
Dissatisfied, Carlton timely appealed.
STANDARD OF REVIEW
"Our review of the district court's grant of summary
judgment is de novo." Brader, 983 F.3d at 53. "A moving party is
to be spared a trial when there is no genuine issue of any material
fact on the record and that party is entitled to judgment as a
matter of law." Id. (quoting Murray v. Warren Pumps, LLC, 821
F.3d 77, 83 (1st Cir. 2016)); see also Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a). "To
avoid 'the swing of the summary judgment scythe,' the nonmoving
party must adduce specific facts showing that a trier of fact could
reasonably find in his favor." Id. (quoting Mulvihill v. Top-
Flite Golf Co., 335 F.3d 15, 19 (1st Cir. 2003)). "The nonmovant
cannot rely on 'conclusory allegations, improbable inferences, and
- 8 -
unsupported speculation.'" Id. (citing Medina-Munoz v. R.J.
Reynolds Tobacco Co., 896 F.2d 5, 8 (1st Cir. 1990)).
DISCUSSION
Carlton's arguments as to how the district court mis-
stepped fall under three primary headers: (1) Section 27-7-2.2
applies here, so there's no valid settlement contract and Carlton's
claims against the appellees should proceed to trial; (2) even if
Section 27-7-2.2 doesn't apply, there was a meeting of the minds
between the parties that Arbella's failure to accept Carlton's
demand within thirty days would revoke that demand; and (3)
Carlton's claim that Arbella engaged in unfair and deceptive
insurance and settlement practices was not procedurally barred
because he sent the requisite notice. We take these in turn.
1. R.I. Gen. Laws § 27-7-2.2
Carlton's first argument as to why the parties aren't
bound by a valid settlement contract succeeds or fails based on
the applicability of Section 27-7-2.2, which reads:
In any civil action in which the defendant is covered by
liability insurance and in which the plaintiff makes a
written offer to the defendant's insurer to settle the
action in an amount equal to or less than the coverage
limits on the liability policy in force at the time the
action accrues, and the offer is rejected by the
defendant's insurer, then the defendant's insurer shall
be liable for all interest due on the judgment entered
by the court even if the payment of the judgment and
interest totals a sum in excess of the policy coverage
limitation. This written offer shall be presumed to
have been rejected if the insurer does not respond in
writing within a period of thirty (30) days.
- 9 -
R.I. Gen. Laws § 27-7-2.2. Carlton urges that the district court's
analysis of the statute was wrong. To Carlton's thinking, the
parties never entered into a valid settlement contract: Section
27-7-2.2 applies, and it renders the settlement contract
unenforceable because Arbella failed to accept his settlement
offer within the thirty-day window the statute lays out. Under
Carlton's construction, the statute applies even though he hadn't
filed a complaint because "'any civil action' means from the time
a torts or contracts-based cause of action begins to accrue" (he
did not propose this definition to the district court). And he
says the Rhode Island Supreme Court's jurisprudence has assumed
applicability of the statute to matters like his, pointing to cases
involving a pre-suit settlement offer, followed by an insurer's
failure to respond in writing within the thirty-day window. See,
e.g., Summit Ins. Co. v. Stricklett, 199 A.3d 523 (R.I. 2019);
DeMarco, 26 A.3d 585.
The appellees, naturally, insist that the district court
got it right in concluding that the statute is inapplicable: The
statute requires that a civil action must be underway, and because
no lawsuit had been filed at the time the parties' settlement
correspondence was playing out, Arbella simply was not bound by
the statute's thirty-day deadline. According to the appellees,
this means the offer and Arbella's acceptance were valid under
- 10 -
Rhode Island law, and the enforceable settlement agreement that
resulted categorically bars Carlton from pursuing his claims in
court.
Plainly, who is correct about the statute's
applicability comes down to the definition of "[i]n any civil
action" as it appears in Section 27-7-2.2. But because Rhode
Island's case law had not yet explicated the meaning of that phrase
in this context, and "[b]ecause the Rhode Island Supreme Court is
the ultimate arbiter of matters of Rhode Island law," we sought
that court's "guidance," W. Rsrv. Life Assur. Co. of Ohio v. ADM
Assocs., LLC, 737 F.3d 135, 136 (1st Cir. 2013); R.I. Sup. Ct. R.
6, by certifying our definitional question: "What is the
definition of 'civil action' in R.I.G.L. § 27-7-2.2?", Johnson,
952 F.3d at 379.
The Rhode Island Supreme Court's clear answer to that
question makes short work of our analysis on Carlton's argument
here. Indeed, the Court carefully considered the parties'
positions, surveyed Rhode Island case law, and reviewed the statute
in question, Johnson, 2021 WL 5996413, at *3, *4, before
"answer[ing] the certified question as follows: The term 'civil
action' in G.L. 1956 § 27-7-2.2 refers to a judicial proceeding
which is commenced by the filing of a complaint and all other
- 11 -
required documents together with the fees prescribed by law," id.
at *5.
Accordingly, Carlton is incorrect. No judicial
proceeding -- replete with complaint-filing, other documents, and
fees -- had been commenced at the time of Arbella's acceptance of
the settlement offer, so Section 27-7-2.2 is inapplicable.7 We
affirm the district court's grant of summary judgment on this
point.
2. Meeting of the Minds
Carlton has a somewhat different -- albeit cursorily
offered -- reason in the alternative why the district court
shouldn't have granted summary judgment on the issue of the
7 Carlton acknowledges as much in a document (styled as a
petition) he filed swiftly on the heels of the Rhode Island Supreme
Court's opinion answering our question.
While we're on the topic of that petition, we note that, in
it, Carlton requested that we schedule a hearing for further
discussion or argument. But nothing in the Rhode Island Supreme
Court's decision is unclear, as Carlton himself seems to
acknowledge, and we see no need for any further appellate
proceedings or submissions on this score.
The petition also points to a footnote in the Rhode Island
Supreme Court's decision that observes that neither its well-known
Asermely, 728 A.2d 461, decision nor Asermely's progeny are
implicated in the Johnson matter. Johnson, 2021 WL 5996413, at *4
n.6. According to Carlton, this has bearing on our de novo review
of his appeal. To the extent he means that footnote's mention of
Asermely has anything to do with the applicability of Section 27-
7-2.2, he is wrong. To the extent his point is that the Court's
mention of Asermely somehow entitles him to additional argument
before us, we disagree. And, to the extent he is simply reminding
us that Asermely generally is part of other arguments he advances
on appeal, we'll get to that shortly.
- 12 -
existence of the valid settlement contract: even if Section 27-
7-2.2 doesn't apply (and, as we've said, it does not), he says
there is a genuine issue of material fact regarding whether there
was a meeting of the minds between Arbella and Carlton that "a
thirty-day time limit was in effect." Over the course of a section
header and a few sentences in his brief to us on appeal, he says
as much, adding that the Asermely demand letter's reference to
Section 27-7-2.2 "activated" that thirty-day "deadline."
It's unclear to us how a demand letter's unilateral
mention of an inapplicable statute that happens to contemplate a
thirty-day response period would somehow amount to a meeting of
the minds that a thirty-day deadline was "activated." And the
demand did not mention a deadline (a thirty-day one or otherwise)
for responding. Carlton does not point us to any case law to
support his legal theory, nor does he point to facts in the record
before us that would allow a trier of fact to reasonably find that
he is correct about this proposition. See, e.g., Brader, 983 F.3d
at 53; id. ("The nonmovant cannot rely on 'conclusory allegations,
improbable inferences, and unsupported speculation.'" (quoting
Medina-Munoz, 896 F.2d at 8)).
We need not wrestle with it. By our lights, this
particular way of arguing "no settlement contract" is being debuted
on appeal; we discern no clear mention of it in Carlton's papers
- 13 -
below or in the transcript of the summary-judgment hearing.8 "The
Federal Reporter is brimming with opinions from us saying things
like: 'arguments not seasonably advanced below cannot be raised
for the first time on appeal.'" Reyes-Colón v. United States, 974
F.3d 56, 62 (1st Cir. 2020) (quoting Eldridge v. Gordon Bros. Grp.,
L.L.C., 863 F.3d 66, 85 (1st Cir. 2017)); see also McCoy v. Mass.
Inst. of Tech., 950 F.2d 13, 22 (1st Cir. 1991) (collecting cases)
("It is hornbook law that theories not raised squarely in the
district court cannot be surfaced for the first time on appeal.").
"And [Carlton] ma[de] no effort to fit [his] situation
within the 'narrowly configured and sparingly dispensed'
exceptions to the raise-or-waive rule (as it is known)" -- in fact,
he doesn't acknowledge the argument's newness. Reyes-Colon, 974
F.3d at 62 (quoting Daigle v. Me. Med. Ctr., Inc., 14 F.3d 684,
688 (1st Cir. 1994)); see also B & T Masonry Const. Co. v. Pub.
Serv. Mut. Ins. Co., 382 F.3d 36, 41 (1st Cir. 2004) (recognizing
"that an appellate court has the authority, in its discretion, to
consider theories not articulated below," but emphasizing "that
exceptions of this kind . . . should be few and far between" --
8 The summary-judgment hearing did discuss the thirty-day
period quite a bit, but in connection to Section 27-7-2.2 and its
applicability. Indeed, the thrust of Carlton's argument always
had been that the statute and its thirty-day deadline applied, and
Arbella blew that statutorily prescribed deadline. On this record,
it's unclear where else the demand's supposed thirty-day period
would have come from.
- 14 -
"[t]he typical case involves an issue that is one of paramount
importance and holds the potential for a miscarriage of justice"
(quotation marks and citations omitted)).
True, the general issue of whether Arbella and Carlton
had formed a valid settlement agreement certainly is something
Carlton hotly contested below. But he did not do so by advancing
this particular argument. See, e.g., Emps. Ins. Co. of Wausau v.
OneBeacon Am. Ins. Co., 744 F.3d 25, 29-30 (1st Cir. 2014)
(instructing that "theories not squarely presented below typically
cannot be advanced here," and holding that "[w]hen a party places
an issue as broad as 'contract interpretation' before the
[district] court, it does not thereby preserve every argument that
might fall under that rubric" (citations omitted)); United States
v. Slade, 980 F.2d 27, 31 (1st Cir. 1992) (emphasizing that "a
party is not at liberty to articulate specific arguments for the
first time on appeal simply because the general issue was before
the district court").
Thus, this argument is not properly before us, and we
need say no more.
Taken together, our rejection of these two appellate
arguments prompts our affirmance of the district court's summary-
judgment conclusion that an enforceable settlement agreement
existed, Carlton is bound by it, and thus his Count I allegations
cannot proceed.
- 15 -
3. Insurer Bad Faith Claims
Carlton's final argument on appeal concerns his insurer
bad faith claims, raised in Count III of his complaint: first, a
common-law claim under Rhode Island law as set forth in Asermely;
and second, a statutory claim under Massachusetts Chapter 93A. He
tells us both of these should have survived summary judgment.
First, Carlton contends that, under Rhode Island law,
Arbella engaged in bad faith in its handling of Carlton's demand.
But we have no need to field this argument -- its underpinnings
are either beyond our reach (to support his contention, Carlton
says knowledge of insurance agents can be imputed to the insurer
as a whole, but he's referring in part to facts beyond the summary-
judgment and appellate record) or flawed as a matter of law (he
premises this theory on the February 28 acceptance being untimely,
but we've already said it wasn't).
Second, Carlton's complaint alleges that Arbella
violated various unfair claim settlement practices delineated in
sections of Massachusetts General Laws chapter 176D -- and, due to
those violations, Carlton has a claim for unfair business practices
under Massachusetts General Laws chapter 93A, section 9. The
district court concluded that Carlton was "barred from bringing a
93A claim," though: "93A requires a prospective consumer plaintiff
to send a written demand for relief to the business accused of
unfair business practices at least thirty days before the filing
- 16 -
of the action. Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 93A, § 9(3). There is no
record here of any such pre-suit communication." Johnson, 2019 WL
2929766 at *4.
According to Carlton, that conclusion is wrong because,
in his telling, his January 25, 2018 demand letter was the
requisite 93A demand letter and the district court was wrong to
"disregard" it as noncompliant with 93A's prerequisites. He urges
that it wasn't necessary to include the phrase "93A Demand"
anywhere in the letter, and the letter sufficiently describes
Carlton's injuries and otherwise meets the requirements as set out
in the statute.
But, as best we can tell, Carlton never told the district
court he believed his Asermely demand constituted a Chapter 93A
letter. Rather, this appears to be another debuted-on-appeal
argument with no attempt made to show that it fits the raise-or-
waive exceptions we so sparingly deploy, and this is problematic
for the reasons we've already explained in detail supra. See,
e.g., Reyes-Colón, 974 F.3d at 62; B & T Masonry Const. Co., 382
F.3d at 41. Accordingly, we do not need to reach it.
Even if were to assume favorably to Carlton that he did
manage to put this squarely before the district court, our review
would not provide him the win he seeks. That is because the
Asermely demand letter did not meet Chapter 93A's requirements.
- 17 -
In Massachusetts, a prospective defendant needs to be
put on "warning that the claimant intends to invoke the heavy
artillery of c. 93A, i.e., multiple damages and the imposition of
counsel fees," and this is why 93A demand letters must meet certain
requirements. Cassano v. Gogos, 480 N.E.2d 649, 651 (Mass. App.
Ct. 1985) (enumerating six factors to be searched for when
reviewing would-be Chapter 93A demand letters: express reference
to 93A; express reference to the consumer protection act; an
"assertion that the rights of the claimants as consumers have been
violated"; an "assertion that the defendant has acted in an unfair
or deceptive manner (G.L. c. 93A, § 2[a])"; "any reference that
the claimants anticipate a settlement offer within thirty days";
or an "assertion that the claimant will pursue multiple damages
and legal expenses, should relief be denied"). The Cassano court
was clear that, "in order to qualify as a written demand under c.
93A, a letter must, in addition to defining the injury suffered
and the relief sought, mention at least one of the six factors we
have enumerated (or contain some other signal which will alert a
reasonably perceptive recipient)." Id. But there, the letter
purporting to be a Chapter 93A demand was inadequate -- it "managed
to set forth in part the plaintiffs' grievances" and generally
communicated "what they expected the defendant to do about them,"
but overall it failed to "characterize[] the claim as one under
the consumer protection statute[,]" id. at 650, and neglected to
- 18 -
include any one of the six enumerated factors, id. at 651. See
also Passatempo v. McMenimen, 960 N.E.2d 275, 293 (Mass. 2012)
(endorsing Cassano's test for 93A demand letters and finding that
"the trial judge correctly dismissed the G.L. c. 93A claims" in
part because the demand letter "failed to identify or describe any
unfair or deceptive act or practice") (citing Cassano, 480 N.E.2d
at 651); see also Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 93A, § 9 (requiring on its
face that the "written demand" must "reasonably describ[e] the
unfair or deceptive act or practice relied upon and the injury
suffered").
Here, Carlton's demand letter similarly falls flat as a
matter of law on the Chapter 93A front in a few ways. For one
thing, it refers to Rhode Island law, making no mention of
Massachusetts law. And moreover, it makes no reference to Chapter
93A (contrary to Carlton's assertion otherwise, stating "93A" is
a factor here), nor does it mention a thirty-day deadline, multiple
damages or legal fees, any alleged unfair or deceptive practice by
Arbella, any purported violation of Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 176D, or
any other allegation of insurer misconduct. See Cassano, 480
N.E.2d at 651. Rather, the letter demanded settlement for the
$100,000 policy limits and indicated that, if the policy-limits
demand was rejected, Rhode Island law would provide a remedy.
The cases Carlton cites on appeal in support of the
proposition that his demand met the requirements of a 93A demand
- 19 -
letter don't support his claim. The demand letter in Richards v.
Arteva Specialties S.A.R.L., for example, "explicitly alleg[ed]"
the defendants' "unfair or deceptive act or practice" by describing
the "details of" an alleged conspiracy. 850 N.E.2d 1068, 1075
(Mass. App. Ct. 2006). And, in Gore v. Arbella Mut. Ins. Co., the
demand letter "demand[ed] that [the insurer] tender the $20,000
policy limits within thirty days," which, as we've just observed,
Carlton's demand letter did not do. 932 N.E.2d 837, 841 (Mass.
App. Ct. 2010).
And so, with no requisite Chapter 93A demand for relief
in play, the district court was right to grant summary judgment as
to Carlton's Chapter 93A claim as well.
CONCLUSION
For these reasons, we affirm the district court's entry
of summary judgment. Each side shall bear its own costs.
- 20 -