Hawker v. Doak
United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
685 Fed. Appx. 565 (2017)
- Written by Tanya Munson, JD
Facts
BancInsure (defendant) was an insurance company that specialized in bank-director insurance. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) (plaintiff) became the receiver of Country Bank and attempted to recover costs from a former Country Bank director under an insurance policy with BancInsure. BancInsure denied the FDIC’s attempt because the FDIC, as the receiver of Country Bank, was barred from recovery as an insured party. Section IV.A.21 of the BancInsure policy contained an insured versus insured exclusion that stated that BancInsure was not liable to make any payments for any claims brought by any receiver of Country Bank. The FDIC argued that the scope of the insured versus insured provision was ambiguous because of a separate regulatory exclusion that was contained in an earlier policy between BancInsure and Country Bank. The regulatory exclusion was omitted from the prior policy through an endorsement and was omitted entirely from the policy in question. The FDIC brought suit in district court. The district court determined that the insured versus insured exclusion in the relevant BancInsure policy barred coverage for claims brought by the FDIC in its capacity as a receiver. The FDIC appealed.
Rule of Law
Issue
Holding and Reasoning (Wardlaw, Gould, Huff, J.J.)
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