Steven Coccaro v. GEICO General Insurance Company

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[DO NOT PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
________________________
No. 15-12591
Non-Argument Calendar
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D.C. Docket No. 9:14-cv-80461-RLR
STEVEN COCCARO,
on behalf of himself and all others
similarly situated,
SHARON COCCARO,
Plaintiffs - Appellants,
versus
GEICO GENERAL INSURANCE COMPANY,
a corporation,
Defendant - Appellee.
________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Southern District of Florida
________________________
(April 20, 2016)
Before MARCUS, JORDAN and JULIE CARNES, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
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Steven and Sharon Coccaro, representative plaintiffs in a putative class
action against GEICO General Insurance Company, appeal from the district court’s
dismissal of their complaint, alleging that GEICO had failed to comply with Fla.
Stat. § 627.727, governing the selection or knowing rejection of uninsured motorist
coverage (“UM coverage”). On appeal, the Coccaros argued that the district court
erred in: (1) concluding that the Coccaros lacked standing to pursue declaratory
and injunctive relief against GEICO; (2) concluding that the Florida Declaratory
Judgment Act was procedural and not substantive; and (3) dismissing the
complaint instead of remanding the case to state court. After thorough review, we
affirm in part, vacate in part, and remand with instructions.
We review standing determinations de novo. DiMaio v. Democratic Nat.
Comm., 520 F.3d 1299, 1301 (11th Cir. 2008). The party invoking federal
jurisdiction bears the burden of proving the essential elements of standing,
although “at the motion to dismiss stage, it may be sufficient to provide general
factual allegations of injury resulting from the defendant’s conduct.” Bochese v.
Town of Ponce Inlet, 405 F.3d 964, 975 (11th Cir. 2005) (quotations omitted). We
also review the legal question of which jurisdiction’s law to apply de novo. Shaps
v. Provident Life & Acc. Ins. Co., 244 F.3d 876, 881 (11th Cir. 2001).
The relevant facts, as alleged in the complaint, are these. On October 18,
2012, Steven Coccaro applied for a GEICO Florida motor vehicle insurance policy
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to provide protection for himself and his family members, including his wife,
Sharon Coccaro. Steven Coccaro used www.geico.com to apply for his policy,
selecting bodily injury liability limits of coverage at $300,000 per person/
$300,000 per accident. He selected far lower limits of uninsured/underinsured
motorist coverage, $10,000 per person/ $20,000 per accident, using a drop-down
menu on the GEICO website. He never viewed an opt-out form, but GEICO
automatically filled in his e-signature on its opt-out form nonetheless.
According to the Coccaros, the drop-down menu did not describe the
requirements of Florida law, and the online application process did not require him
to view an opt-out form compliant with Fla. Stat. § 627.727(1). 1 GEICO’s website
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Fla. Stat. § 627.727(1) requires that insurance companies issuing uninsured/underinsured motor
vehicle insurance must provide such coverage in an amount equal to the bodily injury liability
coverage afforded by the policy, unless applicants opt out of that coverage:
No motor vehicle liability insurance policy which provides bodily injury liability
coverage shall be delivered or issued for delivery in this state with respect to any
specifically insured or identified motor vehicle registered or principally garaged in this
state unless uninsured motor vehicle coverage is provided therein or supplemental thereto
for the protection of persons insured thereunder who are legally entitled to recover
damages from owners or operators of uninsured motor vehicles because of bodily injury,
sickness, or disease, including death, resulting therefrom. However, the coverage
required under this section is not applicable when, or to the extent that, an insured named
in the policy makes a written rejection of the coverage on behalf of all insureds under the
policy.... The rejection or selection of lower limits shall be made on a form approved
by the office. The form shall fully advise the applicant of the nature of the coverage
and shall state that the coverage is equal to bodily injury liability limits unless lower
limits are requested or the coverage is rejected. The heading of the form shall be in
12–point bold type and shall state: “You are electing not to purchase certain
valuable coverage which protects you and your family or you are purchasing
uninsured motorist limits less than your bodily injury liability limits when you sign
this form. Please read carefully.” If this form is signed by a named insured, it will be
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did have an opt-out form, although not one strictly compliant with the requirements
of the statute, at the time Steven Coccaro applied for coverage. Individuals
applying online could only access that form if they voluntarily navigated to it
through a link first provided to the applicant after the application process had
already been completed. Applicants did not have to view the opt-out form to
complete an application, regardless of whether they selected lower limits of
uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage, or even rejected that coverage entirely.
The Florida Office of Insurance Regulation (“FOIR”) disapproved the opt-
out form when GEICO submitted it for review, and required revisions to comply
with Florida law. FOIR approved GEICO’s revised form on July 8, 2013. While
the form now complies with § 627.727, the Coccaros claimed “the www.geico.com
website still is not operated so that an applicant is required to navigate to the form,
and be fully advised of his/her options for uninsured/ underinsured motorists
coverage. Instead viewing the form is still totally optional.”
After Steven Coccaro had selected a GEICO insurance policy with lower
uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage limits, Sharon Coccaro was severely
conclusively presumed that there was an informed, knowing rejection of coverage or
election of lower limits on behalf of all insureds.
Id. (emphasis added). We refer to the form described in the bold text as an “opt-out form.”
Notably, nowhere does the statute expressly mention a private right of action against insurance
companies that have failed to provide a proper opt-out form. This Court has never determined,
however, whether the statute provides an implied private right of action.
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injured on September 28, 2013 in a motor vehicle collision caused by an
uninsured/underinsured motorist. The Coccaros filed a claim with GEICO, and
GEICO sent Steven Coccaro a form letter explaining that he had rejected
uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage limits equal to the bodily injury liability
limits provided under his policy when he applied via the www.geico.com website,
and had instead selected the lowest level of such coverage available. GEICO
tendered the Coccaros a check for $30,000, which they declined to accept. In the
meantime, the Coccaros filed a lawsuit against the underinsured tortfeasor who
caused the accident and against GEICO in Broward County Circuit Court.
First, we are unpersuaded by the Coccaros’ claim that the district court erred
in dismissing their complaint for lack of standing. At an “irreducible constitutional
minimum,” standing requires a plaintiff to show that:
(1) the plaintiff must have suffered an “injury in fact” -- an invasion of a
legally protected interest which is (a) concrete and particularized, and
(b) actual or imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical[;] . . .
(2) there must be a causal connection between the injury and the conduct
complained of -- the injury has to be fairly . . . trace[able] to the
challenged action of the defendant, and not . . . th[e] result [of] the
independent action of some third party not before the court[; and] . . .
(3) it must be likely, as opposed to merely speculative, that the injury will
be redressed by a favorable decision.
See Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560–561 (1992) (quotations and
citations omitted). “Where the plaintiff seeks declaratory or injunctive relief, as
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opposed to damages for injuries already suffered, for example, the injury-in-fact
requirement insists that a plaintiff allege facts from which it appears there is a
substantial likelihood that he will suffer injury in the future.” Strickland v.
Alexander, 772 F.3d 876, 883 (11th Cir. 2014) (quotations omitted). “[A] plaintiff
seeking declaratory or injunctive relief must allege and ultimately prove a real and
immediate -- as opposed to a merely hypothetical or conjectural -- threat of future
injury.” Id. (quotations and emphasis omitted).
The Coccaros claim that they and the class “[h]ave suffered an injury in fact,
in that they have already purchased and have been issued a motor vehicle policy by
GEICO, where GEICO has violated the strict requirements of Florida law.” As for
future injury-in-fact, their only claim on appeal is that because their GEICO
policies may be renewed, GEICO’s practice of denying high limits of
uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage to individuals like the Coccaros, who
may or may not have viewed the opt-out form, continues unabated. However,
under Florida’s statute, if the insured initially selected limits of uninsured motorist
coverage lower than her or his bodily injury liability limits, GEICO is not required
to provide the insured with higher limits of uninsured motorist coverage upon the
policy’s renewal. See Fla. Stat. § 627.727(1) (“When an insured or lessee has
initially selected limits of uninsured motorist coverage lower than her or his bodily
injury liability limits, higher limits of uninsured motorist coverage need not be
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provided in or supplemental to any other policy which renews, extends, changes,
supersedes, or replaces an existing policy with the same bodily injury liability
limits unless an insured requests higher uninsured motorist coverage in writing.”).
Moreover, upon renewal, the Coccaros do not -- and cannot -- claim that they
would be unknowingly rejecting higher UM coverage. As Florida courts have
held, the purpose of § 627.727(1) “was to ease the burden placed on insurance
companies by the case law of Florida in proving that an insured knowingly rejected
higher limits of UM coverage by requiring a ‘paper trail’ as conclusively
presumptive evidence of that fact.” Liberty Mut. Ins. Co. v. Ledford, 691 So. 2d
1164, 1166 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 1997). Thus, the alleged future injury that would
occur upon renewal could not be considered an ongoing violation of the statute.
We are also unpersuaded by the Coccaros’ argument that any dispute
between an insurer and an insured over their policy obligations is a “case” or
“controversy” under Article III of the Constitution. The cases the Coccaros cite
involve a declaration of an insurer’s duty to defend or indemnify. But the duty to
defend or indemnify is not at issue in this declaratory judgment action -- rather, the
Coccaros have sued GEICO over its duty to indemnify under the policy in a case
currently pending in state court. In this case, the Coccaros seek a declaration that
because GEICO violated a state statute, it should automatically provide higher UM
coverage limits to a group of policyholders, regardless of whether GEICO’s duty to
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defend or indemnify is at issue with those policyholders. We simply do not see
how the Coccaros and the class can claim “a substantial likelihood that [they] will
suffer injury in the future.” Strickland, 772 F.3d at 883 (quotations omitted).
As for the Coccaros’ argument that the standing requirements for declaratory
and injunctive relief differ, it is precluded by our precedent. In Strickland, we
expressly applied the same injury-in-fact standing requirement to both declaratory
and injunctive relief: “Where the plaintiff seeks declaratory or injunctive relief, as
opposed to damages for injuries already suffered, for example, the injury-in-fact
requirement insists that a plaintiff ‘allege facts from which it appears there is a
substantial likelihood that he will suffer injury in the future.’” Id. (quoting
Malowney v. Fed. Collection Deposit Grp., 193 F.3d 1342, 1346 (11th Cir.1999))
(emphasis added). Under the prior precedent rule, we are bound to follow a prior
binding precedent “unless and until it is overruled by this court en banc or by the
Supreme Court.” United States v. Vega-Castillo, 540 F.3d 1235, 1236 (11th Cir.
2008) (quotations omitted). Thus, because the Coccaros are not able to show a
substantial likelihood of future injury, the district court did not err in concluding
that the Coccaros and the class lack standing. We affirm the district court's order
to the extent it concluded that the Coccaros’ complaint failed to allege a justiciable
controversy over which federal courts have jurisdiction.
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We are also unconvinced by the Coccaros’ argument that they would not
have lacked standing to sue if the district court had recognized that the Florida
Declaratory Judgment Act is substantive and had applied it -- instead of the federal
Declaratory Judgment Act -- to their claim. In a diversity jurisdiction case like this
one, a court will apply federal law if the matter at hand is procedural, and will
apply the law of the forum state if the matter is substantive. See Erie R.R. Co. v.
Tompkins, 304 U.S. 64, 78 (1938). Here, the Coccaros sued “pursuant to the
Declaratory Judgment Act, 28 U.S.C. § 2201 and Chapter 86 of the Florida
Statutes.” However, Florida’s Declaratory Judgment Act, found in Chapter 86 of
the Florida Statutes, is a procedural mechanism that confers subject matter
jurisdiction on Florida’s circuit and county courts; it does not confer any
substantive rights. See Garden Aire Vill. S. Condo. Ass’n Inc. v. QBE Ins. Corp.,
774 F. Supp. 2d 1224, 1227 (S.D. Fla. 2011); accord Nirvana Condo. Ass’n, Inc. v.
QBE Ins. Corp., 589 F. Supp. 2d 1336, 1343 n.1 (S.D. Fla. 2008); see also Manuel
v. Convergys Corp., 430 F.3d 1132, 1138 n.3 (11th Cir. 2005) (“There is little
doubt . . . that the district court had to apply the [federal] Declaratory Judgment
Act, rather than the state declaratory judgment act, in this action.” (citation
omitted)). Because the Florida Declaratory Judgment Act is procedural as opposed
to substantive, the district court did not err in construing the Coccaros’ cause of
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action as a claim for declaratory and injunctive relief brought under 28 U.S.C. §
2201 exclusively.
We agree, however, that the district court erred in dismissing the case with
prejudice. Instead, the court should have remanded the matter to the state court
from which it was removed instead of dismissing the action with prejudice. See 28
U.S.C. § 1447(c); McGee v. Solicitor Gen. of Richmond Cty., Ga., 727 F.3d 1322,
1326 (11th Cir. 2013). As 28 U.S.C. § 1447(c) explains, once a case has been
removed from state court, “[i]f at any time before final judgment it appears that the
district court lacks subject matter jurisdiction, the case shall be remanded.” See
Int’l Primate Prot. League v. Adm’rs of Tulane Educ. Fund, 500 U.S. 72, 89 (1991)
(“[T]he literal words of § 1447(c) . . . give . . . no discretion to dismiss rather than
remand an action [that has been removed from state court].” (quotations omitted)).
Accordingly, we vacate the portion of the district court’s order dismissing the
action with prejudice, and remand with instructions to remand the action to the
Fifteenth Judicial Circuit Court of Florida in Palm Beach County, Florida.
AFFIRMED in part; VACATED in part; and REMANDED with instructions.
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