Florida Industrial Machinery, Inc. v. Executive Life Insurance Co.
Florida Industrial Machinery, Inc. v. Executive Life Insurance Co.
Opinion of the Court
This cause is before us on appeal of a trial court order granting appellee’s motion for summary judgment and awarding appellants in excess of $200,000 under an insurance contract, and dismissing various other counts in appellant’s complaint. For the following reasons, we affirm in part and reverse in part.
The record reflects that appellants brought suit to collect $500,000 they claimed was due under a policy insuring the life of Robert A. Bean. Bean was one of three officers of appellant Florida Industrial Machinery, Inc. All three had mutually concluded that they needed to insure each other’s lives so that funds would be available to buy out each other’s share of the business in the event of one of their deaths. Consequently, they invited life insurance agent James Plantholt to a June 1985 board meeting and authorized him to
Appellants alleged in their complaint that Plantholt was unlicensed at the time of the June meeting and did not forward an insurance application until approximately two months later. They further alleged that Bean submitted his application soon thereafter but that no policy had been issued when he was killed during an automobile race on November 10, 1985. The allegations in appellants’ complaint, summarized broadly, were that unjustifiable delays in the application approval process were caused by various individuals responsible for forwarding the completed application to Executive Life, and that due to these delays, the policy was not issued before Bean’s death. Appellants also alleged that in early September 1985, they contacted Plantholt to inquire about obtaining an interim contract for $500,000 during the application’s pendency. They wanted the coverage because of planned overseas travel. According to appellants, Plantholt communicated with Executive Life's regional office in Mississippi, headed by regional general agent Ronald Parsons. Appellants maintained that the regional office authorized a $500,000 interim contract of insurance and that Plantholt collected their premiums at that time and assured them that they were insured. Thus, appellants alleged paying the premiums in early September 1985 for all three officers’ interim and permanent coverage.
Appellee argues that the August application was expressly limited by its terms to authorize no more than $200,000 worth of interim coverage during the application’s pendency.
Appellants’ complaint was based on several different causes of action, some alleging tort theories of recovery and others alleging a contract theory. The trial court dealt with the various counts in piecemeal fashion, entering several orders dismissing various counts or portions of counts, and granting appellee’s motion for summary judgment on its theory that the maximum it owed under any contract was $200,000. In granting summary judgment on the contract theory, the court necessarily ruled that there were no disputed material facts which could support a contract recovery in excess of $200,000. This was error.
Oral contracts of insurance are valid in Florida provided that all the elements of a written contract are proven to exist. Burns v. Consolidated American Insurance Company, 359 So.2d 1203 (Fla. 3d DCA 1978). Appellants correctly contend that the unexecuted conditional receipt did not, as a matter of law, limit contractual liability to $200,000. The receipt was conditional on signature, and it was not signed. The completed application also did not, as a matter of law, preclude liability exceeding $200,000. Although the application limited Plantholt’s authority to waive express limitations on coverage, those limits did not necessarily apply to any interim contract that might have been formed. Statements in an application for a written contract of insurance purporting to expressly exclude interim coverage during the application’s pendency are inapplicable to interim contracts authorized by general
Appellee further argues that numerous depositions revealing the facts of this case were not filed with the trial court until after it awarded appellants $200,000 under their contract cause of action. Ap-pellee contends that the evidence contained in the depositions is consequently not a proper subject for review of the trial court’s summary judgment order. The record reflects, however, that at the summary judgment hearing in November 1988, both parties extensively quoted facts contained in the depositions in their memorandums of law. They also argued them orally to the trial court, and no objection was made at that time concerning failure to file.
In Ferguson v. VSL Corporation, 528 So.2d 32 (Fla. 3d DCA 1988), review denied, 537 So.2d 568 (Fla. 1988), the Third District reviewed a situation where a circuit court adjourned a pretrial conference and continued it on the morning of the scheduled trial six days later. On the morning of trial, the judge asked counsel to advise him on the state of the evidence. After hearing both counsels’ presentations, the judge entered summary judgment in VSL’s favor. Although Ferguson argued on appeal that summary judgment was improper because the judge relied on depositions argued by the attorneys but not filed by the court as required by Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 1.510(c), the Third District held that because the depositions were taken pursuant to notice and were “physically in existence before the court,” the rule requirements were satisfied. The case distinguished Liberman v. Rhyne, 248 So.2d 242 (Fla. 3d DCA 1971), which held as a general rule that depositions taken and filed subsequent to a summary judgment hearing may not be considered in ruling on the motion.
It is unnecessary to decide whether, under Ferguson, the rule requirements were sufficiently met to consider the depositions admitted into evidence at the time the trial court ruled. If the depositions were admitted, they obviously showed a fact dispute on whether the regional office authorized the $500,000 binder and whether Plantholt told appellants that coverage might still be limited to $200,000.
Accordingly, the trial court’s orders are affirmed in part and reversed in part, and the cause is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
. Appellee tendered a $200,000 check soon after Bean’s death, which was refused.
. Interim insurance contracts are commonly referred to as “binders” and are deemed by statute to include all the usual terms of the policy for which the binder was given, together with any additional terms agreed to but minus any of the usual terms of the policy which were specifically excluded by the terms of the binder. § 627.420, Fla.Stat. (1989).
. Moreover, regional agent Parsons’ contract with Executive Life was attached to one of the depositions. It clearly showed that he had authority to waive or modify the terms, conditions, and limitations of any policy.
.We reject appellee's additional contention that, because the policy in question was meant to replace existing insurance which remained in effect at the time of Bean’s death, appellants were not entitled to recovery because they suffered no damages. Appellants argue that even if the insurance was originally meant to replace
. See § 624.155, Fla.Stat.
. As explained in Opperman v. Nationwide Mutual Fire Insurance Company, 515 So.2d 263, 265 (Fla. 5th DCA 1987), review denied, 523 So.2d 578 (Fla. 1988), no common law, first party cause of action exists in Florida for bad-faith refusal to settle.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.