U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, 1969

Liberty Mutual Insurance Co. v. Lewis C. Rawls

U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit · Decided May 19, 1969 · Thornberry, Dyer, Keady

404 F.2d 880 (Federal Reporter, Second Series)

Counsel

Charles W. Pittman, Charlie Luckie, Jr., John S. Matthews, Tampa, Fla., Mac-farlane, Ferguson, Allison & Kelly, Tampa, Fla., for appellant., William C. Grimes, Clyde C. Goebel, Grimes, Grimes, Goebel, Parry & Blue, Bradenton, Fla., for appellees.

Cases that cite this one

37 later published cases cite this decision. The 25 that cite it most often are listed here.

Amberge v. Lamb (United States District Court Eastern District of Louisiana 2011)
Fellowship of Christian v. Ironshore Specialty Insurance (8th Cir. 2014)
Welter v. Singer (Wis. Ct. App. 1985)
Washington Ex Rel. Washington v. McCauley (La. Ct. App. 2011)
American Family Mutual Insurance v. Wilkins (Kan. 2008)
Banner v. Raisin Valley, Inc. (District Court, N.D. Ohio 1998)
United Services Automobile Assn. v. Baggett (Cal. Ct. App. 1989)
Kansas Fire & Casualty Co. v. Koelling (Mo. Ct. App. 1987)
Hurst v. Metropolitan Property & Casualty Insurance Co. (Wyo. 2017)
Marlin Lee Just, Noelle Marie Marchant Hughes, and Travis Clinton Hughes v. Farmers Automobile Insurance Association D/B/A Pekin Insurance (Iowa 2016)
Early v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance (Roanoke County Circuit Court 2007)
Pemco Mutual Insurance v. Utterback (Wash. Ct. App. 1998)
Hartford Casualty Insurance v. Medical Protective Co. of Fort Wayne (Ill. App. Ct. 1994)
Sabol v. American Alliance Insurance (Loudoun County Circuit Court 1994)
Suh v. Dennis (N.J. Super. Ct. App. Div. 1992)
Illinois National Insurance v. Szczepkowicz (Ill. App. Ct. 1989)
Doria v. Ins. Co. of North America (N.J. Super. Ct. App. Div. 1986)
Hillman v. United States Liability Insurance (N.C. Ct. App. 1982)
State Farm Fire & Casualty Co. v. Kohl (Cal. Ct. App. 1982)
Slater v. United States Fidelity & Guaranty Co. (Mass. 1980)
Foremost Insurance Company Grand Rapids Michigan v. Guillen (District Court, W.D. Washington 2022)
FLANIA BELT v. USAA CASUALTY INSURANCE COMPANY (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 2021)
Jerald Thomas McClard, s/k/a Jerold Thomas McClard, Jr. v. Commonwealth of Virginia (Va. Ct. App. 2019)
Lloyd's Syndicate 1861 v. Darwin Nat'l Assurance Co. (La. Ct. App. 2018)
Canal Insurance v. Blankenship (District Court, S.D. West Virginia 2001)

This list shows which later cases cite this one. It does not say how they treated it, and no review of that has been done. Not a substitute for Shepard’s or KeyCite — verify before relying.

Opinion

PER CURIAM:

Appellant, the automobile liability insurance carrier of Clinton Bess, was garnished by writ issuing at instance of appellees to pay, subject to policy limits, a judgment obtained by appellees in state court against Bess. The single question presented is whether the insured had one accident or two accidents, as he was proceeding north upon a public highway at a very high rate of speed, being pursued by two deputy sheriffs. Bess collided with the left rear of a northbound automobile in which appellees were riding and knocked it off the highway to the right. His automobile continued northerly, veering across the centerline, and collided head-on with a southbound automobile occupied by the Davis family.

Appellant, having paid $20,000 to settle the Davis claims, now contends that there is nothing left to apply to the judgment obtained by appellees under its insurance policy restricting coverage to $20,000 as “the total limit of the company’s liability * * * as the result of any one accident”. Appellant concedes that if there were two accidents, the judgment of the district court should be affirmed. It is also conceded, in view of the stipulated facts, that the question was properly one for summary judgment. According to the agreed facts, the impact between the Bess automobile and the Rawls automobile was separated from the impact between the Bess automobile and the Davis automobile by both time and distance. These impacts occurred 2 to 5 seconds apart and 30 to 300 feet apart. There were two distinct collisions, or more than a single sudden collision. There is no evidence that the Bess automobile went out of control after striking the rear end of appellees’ automobile. On the contrary, the only reasonable inference is that Bess had control of his vehicle after the initial collision.

*881 The district court correctly held upon these facts that there were, in law, two accidents. Such a conclusion is to be here reached under either the “causation theory” applied by this Court in Saint Paul Mercury Indemnity Co. v. Rutland, 225 F.2d 689 (5 Cir. 1955), determining an event from the standpoint of conduct forming the causative act, or the “effect theory”, alluded to in Anchor Casualty Co. v. McCaleb, 178 F.2d 322 (5 Cir. 1949), when an event is judged from the point of view of a person sustaining injury.

The judgment of the district court must be and is affirmed.

Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.