MICHELLE GUARINO, ADMINISTRATRIX (ESTATE OF GEORGETTE DUFRESNE) v. ALLSTATE PROPERTY AND CASUALTY INSURANCE COMPANY
(SC 19168)
Supreme Court of Connecticut
Arguеd September 19, 2014—officially released January 6, 2015
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Rogers, C. J., and Palmer, Zarella, Eveleigh, McDonald, Espinosa and Robinson, Js.
Gerald S. Sack, with whom, on the brief, was Jonathan A. Cantor, for the appellant (plaintiff).
Joshua O. Balter, for the appellee (defendant).
Opinion
McDONALD, J. The plaintiff, Michelle Guarino, administratrix of the estate of Georgette Dufresne, brought this action against the defendant, Allstate Property and Casualty Insurance Company, to recover underinsured motorist benefits after she settled other actions against two motorists whose negligence she alleged had caused Dufresne’s death. The issue before this court is whether, under such circumstances, it is necessary for a trier of fact to apportion fault and damаges before coverage may be reduced under Dufresne’s underinsured motorist policy for amounts paid by or on behalf of the underinsured motorist, or ‘‘anyone else responsible.’’
The trial court rejected that proposition and rendered summary judgment in favor of the defendant, concluding that Dufresne had no underinsured motorist coverage available because the plaintiff’s recovery of settlement payments in an aggregate sum in excess of the policy’s underinsured motorist coverage reduced her coverage to zero. The Appellate Court affirmed the judgment. Guarino v. Allstate Property & Casualty Ins. Co., 142 Conn. App. 603, 610–13, 67 A.3d 300 (2013). In her certified appeal to this court, the plaintiff contends that the Appellate Court improperly failed to apply binding precedent under which a fact finder must apportion fault and damages before an insurer’s liability may be reduced by settlement payments. We conclude that an underinsured motorist carrier is entitled to judgment as a matter of law when all alleged tortfeasors settle the insured’s claims against them for the injuries giving rise to the underinsured motorist claim in an aggregate sum in excеss of the policy limits. We further conclude that the apportionment cases on which the plaintiff relies are inapposite in such circumstances. Accordingly,
The issue before us arises in the context of the following undisputed facts. Dufresne died as a result of injuries sustained when her automobile was struck by another vehicle as she proceeded through an intersection without stopping at a stop sign posted there. The plaintiff thereafter filed actions, sounding in negligence, against Anton Paving, LLC (Anton), and Lombardi Tire and Auto Repair, LLC (Lombardi), thе owners of two vehicles that she claimed had been parked at the side of the road in a manner that obstructed Dufresne’s view of the stop sign.
At the time of the collision, Dufresne carried automobile insurance issued by the defendant that included coverage for bodily injuries caused by underinsured motorists. Dufresne’s underinsured motorist coverage limit was $100,000 per person per accident. The policy contained the following language: ‘‘The limits of this coverage will be reduced by . . . all amounts paid by
or on behalf of the owner or operator of the uninsured auto or underinsured auto or anyone else responsible.’’
The plaintiff commenced the present action against the defendant after she settled the claim against Anton in return for a payment of $20,000. The plaintiff alleged that she was entitled to recover underinsured motorist benefits under Dufresne’s policy because Anton’s negligence had caused Dufresne’s death and because she had exhausted Anton’s policy for an amount less than her policy coverage. Pursuant to the defendant’s request, the pending action аgainst Lombardi was consolidated with the plaintiff’s action against the defendant. Thereafter, the plaintiff settled the claims against Lombardi in return for a payment of $225,000. As part of that settlement, she executed a release similar to that signed as part of her settlement with Anton. Neither release included a stipulation of fault; in fact, both releases disclaimed liability.
Following Lombardi’s settlement, the defendant filed a motion for summary judgment, asserting that the plaintiff was not entitled to underinsured motorist benefits because she had received payments from Anton and Lombardi in an amount that exceeded Dufresne’s $100,000 policy limit. The plaintiff opposed the motion, contending that there would have to be a finding of fault and an apportionment of damages before there could be any reduction in coverage for Lombardi’s payment. The court agreed with the defendant, granted its motion and rendered judgment in its favor.
The plaintiff appealed to the Appellate Court, which affirmed the judgment. Guarino v. Allstate Property & Casualty Ins. Co., supra, 142 Conn. App. 604. The Appellate Court first determined that the policy provision setting forth the coverage limitаtion conformed in all material respects to insurance regulations governing that matter. Id., 608–10. It then determined that this court’s decision in Buell v. American Universal Ins. Co., 224 Conn. 766, 621 A.2d 262 (1993), supported the trial court’s conclusion that the defendant was entitled to summary judgment under the undisputed facts of the case. Guarino v. Allstate Property & Casualty Ins. Co., supra, 610–13.
In her certified appeal to this court, the plaintiff contends that the trial court and the Appellate Court improperly failed to follow Garcia v. ITT Hartford Ins. Co., 72 Conn. App. 588, 805 A.2d 779 (2002), which she characterizes as applying the law set forth in Collins v. Colonial Penn Ins. Co., 257 Conn. 718, 778 A.2d 899 (2001). She contends that Garcia held
to her case, the plaintiff contends that, although a reduction of damages for the $20,000 settlement with Anton as the underinsured motorist would be proper, it is not proper or possible to determine whether and to what extent Lombardi’s settlement may reduce coverage unless a trier finds that he is ‘‘responsible’’ for Dufresne’s injuries and apportions damages for Lombardi’s proportionate responsibility.1 We conclude that thе defendant was entitled to summary judgment under settled legal principles applied in this court’s decisions. We further conclude that there is no tension between those cases and the apportionment cases on which the plaintiff relies.
We first are guided by the underinsured motorist statutory and regulatory scheme. Under that scheme, ‘‘[a]n insurance company shall be obligated to make payment to its insured up to the limits of the policy’s uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage after the limits of liability under all bodily injury liability bonds or insurance policies applicable at the time of the accident have been exhausted by payment of judgments or settlements . . . .’’ (Emphasis added.)
It has often been stated that ‘‘[t]he public policy established by the [under]insured motorist statute is that every insured is entitled to recover for the damages he or she would have been able to recover if the [under]insured motorist had maintained [an adequate] policy of liability insurance.’’ (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Haynes v. Yale-New Haven Hospital, 243 Conn. 17, 27, 699 A.2d 964 (1997); accord Gormbard v. Zurich Ins. Co., 279 Conn. 808, 819, 904 A.2d 198 (2006); Harvey v. Travelers Indemnity Co., 188 Conn. 245, 249, 449 A.2d 157 (1982). However, ‘‘[t]he statute does not require that [under]insured motorist coverage be made available when the insured has been otherwise protected . . . . Nor does the statute provide that the [under]insured motorist coverage shall stand as an independent source
of recovery for the insured, or that the coverage limits shall not be reduced under appropriate circumstances. The statutе merely requires that a certain minimum level of protection be provided for those insured under automobile liability insurance policies . . . .’’ (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Orkney v. Hanover Ins. Co., 248 Conn. 195, 205, 727 A.2d 700 (1999).
The aforementioned parameters and policies are the same irrespective of whether there is a single tortfeasor or multiple tortfeasors. In either case, the claimant is required to exhaust the policies of only one tortfeasor in order to recover underinsured benefits. General Accident Ins. Co. v. Wheeler, 221 Conn. 206, 207, 603 A.2d 385 (1992). This liberal rule, however, does not supersede the insurer’s right under the regulation to limit coverage by any payments received by the claimant in settlement of claims for an indivisible injury.
The application of that principle is demonstrated by our decisions in Buell v. American Universal Ins. Co., supra, 224 Conn. 766, and Hartford Casualty Ins. Co. v. Farrish-LeDuc, 275 Conn. 748, 750–51, 882 A.2d 44 (2005) (Hartford Casualty). In Buell, the claimant received payments in settlement of actions brought against two motorists that she claimed had caused her injuries. Buell, 224 Conn. at 768. The aggregate sum of the settlements was less than the claimant’s underinsured motorist coverage. Id., 768–69. Thereafter, the claimant commenced an arbitration proceeding against her underinsured motorist carrier. Id., 769. Despite the fact that the arbitral panel found that one of the two motorists was not at fault; id.; this court held that the panel properly reduced the insurer’s liability by the aggregate of both settlements. Id., 773–75. The court rejected the claimant’s contention that the regulation permitting an insurer to reduce its liability by amounts paid ‘‘by or on behalf of any party responsible for the injury’’ was inapplicable to the settlement by the motorist found by the panel not to be at fault. (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Id., 773–74. The court reasoned that the liability of the settling motоrists was never formally litigated, as they were not parties to the arbitration. Id., 774. The court further reasoned that permitting the reduction of the insurer’s liability by both motorists’ settlement payments was supported by the dual legislative intent of providing a minimum level of protection to underinsured motorists while also preventing double recovery on the part of the insured. Id., 775.
Hartford Casualty followed the rationale of Buell. In Hartford Casualty, the claimant had $600,000 in underinsured motorist coverage at the time she was injured in an accident allegedly caused by two motorists. Hartford Casualty Ins. Co. v. Farrish-LeDuc, supra, 275 Conn. 751. The claimant’s action against one motorist was withdrawn after the сase settled for a
total payment of $127,835.30. Id., 752. That payment exhausted that motorist’s insurance policy limits, thus allowing the claimant to file a claim for underinsured motorist benefits. Id., 752–53. The claimant’s action against the second motorist was dismissed because it had been brought after the statute of limitations expired. Id., 752. Thereafter, the claimant received a $656,581 payment in settlement of a legal
This court characterized the issue as ‘‘essentially distill[ing] to thе question of whether that [settlement] payment constitutes damages ‘paid by or on behalf of any person responsible for the injury’ within the meaning of [the governing regulation].’’ Id., 758. In answering that question in the affirmative, the court first determined that the settlement of the legal malpractice claim was ‘‘the functional equivalent of a payment from [the motorist’s] insurance carrier.’’ Id., 760; see id., 759–60 (reasoning that malpractice claim would have required claimant to prove that she would have recovered damages in dismissed action and that damages from malpractice action were same as those that would have been recovered against motorist had law firm properly pursued negligence action). Accordingly, the court concluded that there was ‘‘no logical reason to treat the payments as distinct for purposes of [the regulation]. It is true, of course, that neither [the law firm] nor its professional liability insurance carrier was responsible for the injuries that [the claimant] had sustained as a result of [the motorist’s] negligent operation of his vehicle. Nevertheless, [the law firm] essentially conceded, by virtue of its settlement payments, that it had caused the economic harm that flowed from the accident. To preclude the [insurer] from reducing the limits of the [claimant’s] uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage by the $656,581 in settlement payments that the [claimant] had received from [the law firm’s] professional liability insurer would permit the [claimant] to recover twice for the same element of damages, a result that is at odds with the ‘time-honored rule that an injured party is entitled to full recovery only once for the harm suffered.’ ’’ (Emрhasis added.) Id., 760–61. The court bolstered its conclusion with the fact that its resolution of the issue was consistent with
its prior interpretation of the uninsured/underinsured motorist scheme in cases involving third party settlements, specifically discussing the court’s analysis in Buell. Id., 761–62.
Thus, Buell and Hartford Casualty collectively stand for two propositions. First, settlement payments received in exchange for the relinquishment of a claim for the damages arising from a motor vehicle accident constitute a permissible reduction of coverage as a payment ‘‘by or on behalf of any person responsible for the injury . . . .’’
To the extent that the plaintiff claims that Buell was overruled sub silentio by our decision eight years later in Collins v. Colonial Penn Ins. Co., supra, 257 Conn. 718, because the two cases cannot be reconciled, she is mistaken. We first point out that Hartford Casualty, which relied on Buell as support, was decided four years after we issued our decision in Collins. More fundamentally, Collins is readily distinguishable from Buell. Collins was a negligence action in which settlement had been reached on behalf of only one of two tortfeasors. See Collins v. Colonial Penn Ins. Co., supra, 721. The issue in Collins was whether the nonsettling
tortfeasor’s statutory right to apportionment was impacted by the fact that the claim against the second tortfeasor, an unidentified hit-and-run motorist, had been settled by the plaintiff’s uninsured motorist carrier as a proxy for that motorist. Id. The trial court concluded that, because the plaintiff had settled an uninsured motorist claim, the settlement should be treated as one arising out of a contract action, to which apportionment does not apply. Id., 726. Thus, the trial court permitted the plaintiff to keep the settlement and to recover the entire damages award from
Because the case had to be remanded to determine the nonsettling tortfeasor’s proportionate liability, this court expressly declined to address the tortfeasor’s claim that it would violate the rule against double recovery to allow the plaintiff to keep the settlement and the damages award. Id., 726. Nonetheless, the court determined that the settlement payment would not directly bear on the tortfeasor’s proportionate liability because
It is clear from this discussion that whether a tortfeasor has a statutory right to pay only his fair share of damages for injury he or she has caused in part is an entirely different matter than whether an insurer has a contractual right to reduce coverage as a result of payments tortfeasors have made to the claimant. See Mazziotti v. Allstate Ins. Co., 240 Conn. 799, 817, 695 A.2d 1010 (1997) (‘‘The substance of the cause of action in the first trial was an action in tort; specifiсally, whether [the tortfeasor] was liable to the plaintiff for the negligent operation of his motor vehicle. An action to recover under an automobile insurance policy, on the other hand, is not an action in tort but, rather, an action in contract.’’); Savoie v. Prudential Property & Casualty Ins. Co., 84 Conn. App. 594, 601–607, 854 A.2d
786 (recognizing distinction for purpose of apportionment), cert. denied, 271 Conn. 932, 859 A.2d 930 (2004); see also Bovat v. Waterbury, 258 Conn. 574, 601, 783 A.2d 1001 (2001) (‘‘[w]here a joint tortfeasor is entitled to apportionment, settlements are not deducted dollar for dollar from the jury verdict’’).
The plaintiff misconstrues the import of two statements in Collins: (1) that ‘‘[a] plaintiff’s settlement with one tortfeasor in a multitortfeasor context . . . does not necessarily represent a claimant’s fair, just and reasonable damages but, rather, represents, in part, the parties’ assessments of the risks of litigation’’; Collins v. Colonial Penn Ins. Co., supra, 257 Conn. 735; and (2) that ‘‘the legislature, in enacting
Accordingly, the plaintiff’s reliance on the Appellate Court’s decision in Garcia, in which the Appellate Court viewed the issue as a variant of the one presented in Collins, is similarly misplaced. In Garcia, the claimant sustained injuries in an accident caused by an identified motorist and an unidentified hit-and-run motorist. Garcia v. ITT Hartford Ins. Co., supra, 72 Conn. App. 589. In reverse of the facts in Collins, the known tortfeasor settled in an amount that exceeded the uninsured motorist coverage, and the claimant brought an action against the underinsured motorist carrier as a surrogate for the unidentified motorist. Id., 589–90. The Appellate Court recognized that the carrier was ‘‘standing in the shoes of the unidentified tortfeasor, whom the [claimant] has not settled with in any amount.’’ Id., 600. The court framed the issue before it as ‘‘whether, in a multiple tortfeasor context, the injured party is precluded as a mаtter of law from recovering under an uninsured motorists policy where she has settled with one tortfeasor for an amount greater than the uninsured motorists coverage against which she is claiming.’’ Id., 594. It viewed Collins as ‘‘requir[ing], in the multitortfeasor context, a fact finder to apportion the plaintiff’s damages and that any setoff apply to only a percentage of the damages rather than to a dollar for dollar reduction.’’ Id., 595. The Appellate Court reasoned that the order in which a party settles or pursues claims should not dictate different outcоmes. Id., 599. Therefore, it
determined that the claimant had a right to have a trier of fact apportion the percentage of negligence of the nonsettling party. Id., 598–99.
We construe Garcia as simply treating the uninsured motorist carrier as if it were the tortfeasor and applying the rules of apportionment that apply in the multitortfeasor context. Although the Appellate Court implicitly questioned whether Collins might impact this court’s earlier holding in Buell, it nonetheless recognized that the cases were inapposite. Id., 600. Indeed, in a subsequent case decided by a panel comprised of two of the three members of the panel in Garcia, the Appellate Court expressly recognized that the apportionment analysis in Garcia had no bearing on a case in which a claimant seeks underinsured motorist benefits after all tortfeasors have settled. See Savoie v. Prudential Property & Casualty Ins. Co., supra, 84 Conn. App. 601–607 (holding that recovery barred when payments from multiple tortfeasors exceeded coverage).3
Ultimately, the plaintiff has confused her right to recover damages with the right to recover the minimum guaranteed by underinsured motorist coverage. When the plaintiff settled her claims with both
The judgment of the Appellate Court is affirmed.
In this opinion the other justices concurred.
precondition to coverage, namely, exhaustion of all insurance policies applicable at the time of the accident. Id., 600–601. In the present case, the issue is not whether the plaintiff is entitled to bring an underinsured motorist action, but whether her coverage in such an action is reduced by settlement payments. The latter implicates the well settled rule barring double recovery; see Haynes v. Yale-New Haven Hospital, supra, 243 Conn. 22 and n.6; a concern not implicated in Todd. Indeed, Todd makes no mention of Savoie v. Prudential Property & Casualty Ins. Co., 84 Cоnn. App. 594, 601–607, 854 A.2d 786, cert. denied, 271 Conn. 932, 859 A.2d 930 (2004), which held that settlements are payments made by a person ‘‘responsible for the injury’’ within the meaning of