Dana Lewis v. Liberty Mutural Fire Insurance Company , 450 F. App'x 806 ( 2011 )

[DO NOT PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT FILED
________________________ U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
No. 11-12723 NOVEMBER 14, 2011
Non-Argument Calendar JOHN LEY
________________________ CLERK
D. C. Docket No. 2:10-cv-14235-KMM
DANA LEWIS,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
versus
LIBERTY MUTUAL FIRE INSURANCE
COMPANY,
Defendant-Appellee.
________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Southern District of Florida
_________________________
(November 14, 2011)
Before DUBINA, Chief Judge, MARCUS and MARTIN, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
Appellant Dana Lewis appeals the district court’s grant of summary
judgment in favor of Liberty Mutual Fire Insurance Company in a declaratory
judgment action brought by Lewis. Lewis was injured in an automobile accident.
The controversy in this case surrounds the finding by the district court that
Lewis’s employer, United Subcontractors Inc. (“USI”), explicitly rejected
Uninsured Motorist coverage in an amount equal to its bodily injury limits, and
opted for a lesser amount of $20,000 per accident. More specifically, the district
court found that Lewis offered no evidence showing that USI had the intent to
purchase Uninsured Motorist insurance in the amount of its bodily injury limits or
that it had the intent to purchase Uninsured Motorist limits in any amount other
than the minimum limits required by any state in which it did business.
This court reviews the district court’s grant of a motion for summary
judgment de novo and all issues of material fact are resolved in favor of the non-
moving party. Cuvillier v. Rockdale County, 390 F.3d 1336 (11th Cir. 2004).
The record in this case demonstrates that USI, Liberty Mutual’s named
insured, rejected full Uninsured Motorist coverage in the amount of its bodily
injury limits of liability and instead elected Uninsured Motorist coverage in a
lesser amount. More specifically, this decision was memorialized in writing when
USI signed a Department of Insurance Approved Rejections/Selection Form
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clearly indicating that it rejected Uninsured Motorist limits under its policy in the
amount of bodily injury limits and instead selected lower limits. See Fla. Stat. §
627.727; Jackson v. State Farm Fire and Cas. Co., 469 So. 2d 191, 193 (Fla. 2d
DCA 1985). Later, Amendatory Endorsement 72 was added to the policy to
endorse the Uninsured Motorist coverages afforded by the policy. As set forth in
Amendatory Endorsement 72, the coverage for Florida Uninsured Motorist claims
was confirmed as $20,000.00 per accident. Lewis did not challenge the execution
or the authenticity of any of these documents in the district court and submitted no
evidence that controverts USI’s rejection of full Uninsured Motorist coverage.
The bottom line is that there is no evidence in this record that USI ever intended
that the limits for Uninsured Motorist coverage in Florida be $2,000,000 or that it
intended at any time that the limits in Florida be anything other than the minimum
amount required by statute. Accordingly, for the foregoing reasons, we affirm the
district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of Liberty Mutual.
AFFIRMED.
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