Insurance Dispute Lawyer Blog
Even when a case goes to federal court, that body must still try to interpret state law if that is the governing policy in the matter. While this may seem confusing, cases involving local matters can get to federal court for a number of reasons. Of the most common are the notion that the case involves federal law, such as a social security claim, or that the case involves two parties that are not from the same state. The latter is termed “diversity jurisdiction.” In diversity jurisdiction cases, the federal court will often have to look to state law to determine how a case must be decided. For example, state law, not federal law, generally determines cases in personal injury or contract disputes.
Louisiana, like many states, holds the notion that insurance policies are contracts. Therefore, contract law covers any disputes regarding insurance policies. As such, if a case goes to federal court because the insurance company is not in the same state as the insured, then the federal court will have to use Louisiana contract law to determine the outcome of the case.
Louisiana contract law provides two overreaching concepts regarding contract interpretation. First, the contract should reflect the intent of the two parties. That intention is portrayed in the wording of the contract; therefore, the court should look only to the contract, not to outside information, to determine the intent of the parties. Second, Louisiana will only apply the first concept if the result is not absurd.
All of these concepts, diversity jurisdiction, insurance policies as contracts, and contract interpretation in Louisiana, were embodied in a recent case. In that case, property damage due to smoke from a fire created an insurance dispute. Once the parties determined that they needed their insurance to cover the damage, they started looking into their insurance policies. The complication in this case was that the parties were both individuals and they ran their own businesses; the insurance policies were unclear as to which entity was covered, the individual or the business. The names of the business also changed frequently. That is, they used a commonly referred to trade name instead of their official name. A common example of this is something like using the name “Disney” instead of “The Walt Disney Company.”
Since the names were an issue, the insurance company was trying to claim that the damaged property was not covered under their current policy. The insurance company claimed that they were covering someone or something else entirely. The lower court actually went along with the insurance company’s reasoning and determined that the property as not covered and dismissed the case in favor of the insurance company.
During the appeal, the party whose property was damaged argued that they intended for the property to be covered, so the court should take that into consideration because contract interpretation involves determining the intent between the parties. The court did so and found that if the insurance company’s reasoning were to prevail, that would mean that they insured companies that just did not exist. The court pointed out that this is an example of an absurd result. They concluded that the parties could not have possibly meant to insure companies or persons that did not exist. Therefore, the court looked beyond just the wording of the contract because of this absurd result. As a result, they remanded the contract back to the parties to reword it so it would reflect their common intentions.
It is important to note that federal law did not play a role in this case because even though it was in federal court, contract law was governed by Louisiana in this case. The federal court noted that they were guessing what the Louisiana Supreme Court would say about this case by mentioning that because of the result, “[i]t is our judgment that the Louisiana Supreme Court would not enforce the literal text of the 2004-2005 Policy.”
This case shows us the importance of the insurance policy contract. If the wording does not accurately reflect the intentions between the two parties then there can be a negative result. The Berniard Law firm can help you with insurance disputes if you need help.
Call 504-521-6000 toll free and we would be happy to answer your legal questions.