Bobbi Jo Dockins v. American Family Financial Serv , 606 F. App'x 877 ( 2015 )

FILED
NOT FOR PUBLICATION MAR 30 2015
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
BOBBI JO DOCKINS, No. 13-15133
Plaintiff - Appellant, D.C. No. 2:11-cv-00907-KJD-
CWH
v.
AMERICAN FAMILY FINANCIAL MEMORANDUM*
SERVICES, INC., American Family
Mutual Insurance Company,
Defendants - Appellees.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the District of Nevada
Kent J. Dawson, District Judge, Presiding
Argued and Submitted March 12, 2015
San Francisco, California
Before: BERZON, BYBEE, and OWENS, Circuit Judges.
Appellant Bobbi Jo Dockins appeals the district court’s order granting
summary judgment to Appellees American Family Financial Services, Inc., and
American Family Mutual Insurance Company.
*
This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by 9th Cir. R. 36-3.
Proof that Dockins is legally entitled to recover from Allen Jackson Lynn is
a necessary element of her claims against Appellees for breach of contract and
breach of the covenant of good faith and fair dealing for denying Dockins’s
demand for underinsured motorist (“UIM”) coverage pursuant to the insurance
policy she had with Appellees. Dockins’s state tort suit against Lynn was
dismissed as a discovery sanction. The district court held that Nevada’s claim
preclusion doctrine bars Dockins from establishing that she is legally entitled to
recover from Lynn.
We reverse.
Federal courts sitting in diversity “determine the preclusive effect of a state
court judgment by applying that state’s preclusion principles.” ReadyLink
Healthcare, Inc. v. State Comp. Ins. Fund, 754 F.3d 754, 760 (9th Cir. 2014)
(citing 28 U.S.C. § 1738).
“[F]or claim preclusion to apply [under Nevada law,] the following factors
must be met: (1) the same parties or their privies are involved in both cases, (2) a
valid final judgment has been entered, and (3) the subsequent action is based on the
same claims or any part of them that were or could have been brought in the first
case.” Five Star Capital Corp. v. Ruby, 194 P.3d 709, 714 (Nev. 2008).
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Claim preclusion does not bar Dockins from establishing Lynn’s fault in this
litigation because two of the three claim preclusion elements are not satisfied. The
two suits involve neither the “same claims” nor the “same parties” under Nevada
law. Id.Dockins’s claims in this case are not “the same claims” as those in the prior
litigation under Nevada law. Id. “The Nevada test for identical causes of action is
whether the sets of facts essential to maintain the two suits are the same.”
Clements v. Airport Auth., 69 F.3d 321, 328 n.4 (9th Cir. 1995) (citing In re Estate
of Firsching, 578 P.2d 321, 322 (Nev. 1978)). As the Nevada Supreme Court has
explained, this means claim preclusion is only appropriate where “the entire
subject matter of the suits is identical,” Round Hill Gen. Improvement Dist. v.
B-Neva, Inc., 606 P.2d 176, 178 (Nev. 1980), or, in other words, where the later
claim is “based upon an identical set of facts and could have been brought
simultaneously” to the first. G.C. Wallace, Inc. v. Eighth Judicial Dist. Court ex
rel. Cnty. of Clark, 262 P.3d 1135, 1139 (Nev. 2011).
While some facts are common to both cases, the entire subject matter of
Dockins’s present suit against Appellees is not identical to that of her suit against
Lynn. Dockins’s bad faith and breach of contract claims necessarily involve, at
least in part, facts relating to Appellee’s conduct occurring well after Dockins
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brought suit against Lynn, for example, Appellees’ conduct in denying her claim
despite allegedly “recogniz[ing] . . . their liability, pursuant to [the insurance]
contract,” to pay Dockins. Indeed, Dockins’s bad faith and breach of contract
claims against Appellees did not ripen until they denied her demand for UIM
benefits in September 2009, more than a year after her suit against Lynn was
dismissed. See Pemberton v. Farmers Ins. Exch., 858 P.2d 380, 382 (Nev. 1993)
(“An insurer fails to act in good faith when it refuses ‘without proper cause’ to
compensate the insured for a loss covered by the policy.”). Dockins therefore
could not “have . . . brought” her bad faith and breach of contract claims against
Appellees “simultaneously” to her claims against Lynn in 2005. G.C. Wallace,
Inc., 262 P.3d at 1139. For that reason, and because the “the entire subject matter
of the suits is [not] identical,” Round Hill, 606 P.2d at 178, the claims are not “the
same” for purposes of claim preclusion.
Claim preclusion does not apply for the further reason that the parties in this
case are not the “same parties” as in the prior litigation. Ruby, 194 P.3d at 714.
The “same parties” factor in Nevada requires that “the same parties or their privies
are involved in both cases.” Id.The district court erroneously concluded that only Dockins need have been a
party (or in privity with a party) to the prior litigation, rather than both Appellees
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and Dockins. Ruby’s explication of the “same parties” element makes clear that
both the party against whom claim preclusion is asserted and the party asserting
claim preclusion must have been “involved” in the prior case or in privity with a
party involved in the prior case. Id.Paradise Palms Community Association v. Paradise Homes, 505 P.2d 596,
599 (Nev. 1973), holding that mutuality is not required for issue preclusion (also
known as collateral estoppel), did not disturb the general rule in Nevada that
mutuality is required for claim preclusion. As Ruby makes clear, claim preclusion
continues to require that “the same parties or their privies are involved in both
cases,” 194 P.3d at 714, whereas issue preclusion requires only that “the party
against whom the judgment is asserted must have been a party or in privity with a
party to the prior litigation,” id. at 713 (quoting Univ. of Nev. v. Tarkanian, 879
P.2d 1180, 1191 (Nev. 1994)) (internal quotation marks omitted).
Appellees are not in privity with the defendant in the prior case, who was not
their insured, nor were they a party to that litigation. For that reason as well, claim
preclusion does not bar Dockins from bringing her claims against Appellees.
Because claim preclusion does not bar Dockins from bringing her present
claims against Appellees or prevent her from establishing legal entitlement by
proving Lynn’s fault, summary judgment was inappropriate. We therefore reverse.
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REVERSED.
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