Bowman v. The Standard Fire Insurance Co.

UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 10-1009
ERNEST BOWMAN, Personal Representative of the Estate of
Easel Hamilton; JENNIFER WILLIAMS; HENRY L. COHEN,
Plaintiffs - Appellants,
v.
THE STANDARD FIRE INSURANCE COMPANY, f/k/a Aetna Life &
Casualty Insurance Company, a/k/a St. Paul Travelers,
Defendant - Appellee.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of
South Carolina, at Charleston. C. Weston Houck, Senior District
Judge. (2:06-cv-03307-CWH)
Submitted: September 3, 2010 Decided: October 15, 2010
Before MOTZ, DAVIS, and KEENAN, Circuit Judges.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Andrew K. Epting, Jr., ANDREW K. EPTING, JR., LLC, Charleston,
South Carolina; George J. Kefalos, GEORGE J. KEFALOS, P.A.,
Charleston, South Carolina, for Appellants. M. Dawes Cooke,
John William Fletcher, BARNWELL WHALEY PATTERSON & HELMS, LLC,
Charleston, South Carolina, for Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
PER CURIAM:
Ernest Bowman, Jennifer Williams, and Henry Cohen
(“Appellants”) appeal the district court’s order denying their
motion to alter or amend the court’s order granting Standard
Fire Insurance Company’s (“Standard Fire”) motion for summary
judgment and dismissing the complaint. We affirm.
Appellants claim on appeal, as they did in the
district court, that Standard Fire is responsible for satisfying
a judgment rendered against Highway Materials, Inc. Highway
Materials maintained a general commercial liability (“GCL”)
insurance policy and an excess umbrella insurance policy with
Standard Fire from 1990-1991. The judgment against Highway
Materials arose out of injuries sustained in a series of
automobile accidents in South Carolina in 1998, which were
allegedly caused by Highway Materials’s negligence in the early
1990s, when they were constructing the highway. Appellants
claim that the insurance agreement obliges Standard Fire to
satisfy a judgment stemming from a bodily injury taking place at
any time because they claim that the insurance policies do not
temporally limit when the injury must take place for the
insurance coverage to be activated. Standard Fire disputes this
interpretation of the insurance agreement.
The relevant language in the GCL policy states “[t]his
insurance applies only to ‘bodily injury’ and ‘property damage’
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which occurs during the policy period. The ‘bodily injury’ or
‘property damage’ must be caused by an occurrence.’” The policy
defines bodily injury as “bodily injury, shock, fright, mental
injury, disability, mental anguish, humiliation, sickness or
disease sustained by a person, including death resulting from
any of these at any time.” Appellants urge the court to view
“bodily injury” and “property damage” disjunctively because they
claim that such a reading would render the limiting “policy
period” language ineffective with respect to “bodily injury.”
They also argue that the term “at any time” at the end of the
definition of bodily injury should be interpreted to mean that
any of the events giving rise to bodily injury may happen at any
time in order to be covered under the policy.
Standard Fire argues that “bodily injury” and
“property damage” should be read together so that the “policy
period” language applies with equal force to both. They also
claim that the term “at any time” means only that a resulting
death may happen at any time, so long as the injury which caused
the death took place during the policy period. They also claim
that Appellants’ interpretation is untenable and inconsistent
with the intent of the parties to the agreement.
We review de novo a district court’s order granting
summary judgment. Providence Square Assocs., L.L.C. v. G.D.F.,
Inc., 211 F.3d 846, 850 (4th Cir. 2000). Summary judgment
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should be granted “if the pleadings, the discovery and
disclosure materials on file, and any affidavits show that there
is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the movant
is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Fed. R. Civ. P.
56(c). “[T]here is no issue for trial unless there is
sufficient evidence favoring the nonmoving party for a jury to
return a verdict for that party. If the evidence is merely
colorable, or is not significantly probative, summary judgment”
is proper. Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 249-
50 (1986) (citations omitted).
Under South Carolina law (which the parties agree
governs this appeal), “[a]n insurance contract is subject to the
general rules of contract construction.” Hansen ex rel. Hansen
v. United Servs. Auto. Ass’n, 565 S.E.2d 114, 116
(S.C. Ct. App. 2002) (citation omitted). Moreover, “[t]he
purpose of all rules of construction is to ascertain the
intention of the parties to the contract.” Id. (citation
omitted).
“If the contract’s language is clear and unambiguous,
the language alone determines the contract’s force and effect.”
Schulmeyer v. State Farm Fire & Cas. Co., 579 S.E.2d 132, 134
(S.C. 2003) (citation omitted). “Furthermore, a contract is
ambiguous only when it may fairly and reasonably be understood
in more ways than one.” Hansen, 565 S.E.2d at 117. (internal
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quotation marks and citation omitted). “[W]hen an insurance
policy . . . is susceptible to more than one reasonable
interpretation, one of which would provide coverage, [courts]
must hold as a matter of law in favor of coverage.” Gaskins v.
Blue Cross-Blue Shield of S.C., 245 S.E.2d 598, 602 (S.C. 1978)
(citation omitted); see also Goldston v. State Farm Mut. Auto.
Ins. Co., 594 S.E.2d 511, 518 (S.C. Ct. App. 2004) (“Where
language used in an insurance contract is ambiguous, or where it
is capable of two reasonable interpretations, that construction
which is most favorable to the insured will be adopted.”)
(internal quotation marks and citation omitted). In determining
the meaning of contract terms, “[t]he Court must give policy
language its plain, ordinary, and popular meaning.” Century
Indem. Co. v. Golden Hills Builders, Inc., 561 S.E.2d 355, 358
(S.C. 2002).
The rule of strict construction against an insurer
does not authorize a perversion of language or the exercise of
inventive powers for the purpose of creating an ambiguity where
none exists, S.S. Newell & Co. v. Am. Mut. Liab. Ins. Co., 19
S.E.2d 463, 467 (S.C. 1942), nor should courts torture the
meaning of policy language to extend or defeat coverage that was
never intended by the parties, Torrington Co. v. Aetna Cas. &
Sur. Co., 216 S.E.2d 547, 550 (S.C. 1975). Rather, if the
meaning of a particular word or phrase cannot be determined from
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the language itself, a court must read the policy as a whole and
consider the context and subject matter of the insurance
contract in order to discern the parties’ intention. See
Yarborough v. Phoenix Mut. Life Ins. Co., 225 S.E.2d 344, 348-49
(S.C. 1976).
Here, the district court analyzed the language at
issue, and in ruling on Appellants’ motion to alter or amend,
expressly concluded that it was not ambiguous. We concur.
Appellants propose an altogether novel interpretation of the
language at issue that is simply not consistent with the policy
as a whole. It strains credulity to suggest that the parties
intended for the insurance agreement to provide coverage for
bodily injuries at any indefinite time after the policy’s
expiration. We therefore agree that the terms are not
ambiguous, and that the policy does not apply to Appellants’
judgment against Highway Materials.
Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the district
court. We dispense with oral argument because the facts and
legal contentions are adequately presented in the materials
before the court and argument would not aid the decisional
process.
AFFIRMED
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