Clarendon National Insurance Company v. Mariamedina, Guillermo Medina

Before ROVNER, WOOD, and TINDER, Circuit Judges.

The trailer of Guillermo Medina’s semi-truck jackknifed across the center line of a slippery road while he was making a delivery of shingles for Town Trucking Company, a federally licensed motor carrier. The wayward trailer struck a pickup truck and killed its driver, Michael Walter Schulman. Schulman’s parents, as administrators of his estate, brought a wrongful death and survival action in Illinois state court against Town; Guillermo; and Guillermo’s wife, Maria Medina, the titular owner of the truck Guillermo was driving at the time of the accident. The suit settled. Pursuant to the settlement agreement, Town’s insurance carrier, Occidental Fire & Casualty, who defended the action, paid out the full $1 million policy limit. The agreement also provided that the state court would issue a $2 million consent judgment against Town and the Medinas. Schulman’s estate agreed that the payment from Occidental would satisfy the first $1 million of the judgment, while the second $1 million would come, if at all, from an insurance policy Clarendon National Insurance Company issued to Guillermo. Clarendon declined coverage, citing an exclusion in Guillermo’s policy. It then sought a declaratory judgment of its liability from the district court for the Northen District of Illinois. The district court found no coverage and granted summary judgment in Clarendon’s favor. We affirm.