Chapter 4

Kyle golfed Monday and phoned Lara that evening. He enjoyed talking to her and it seemed she enjoyed talking to him. There was some discussion as to what they would do Friday but that was still to be decided. The both knew what they would do later that evening but it was what would lead up to that which was open for discussion.

He was getting ready to leave his condo Tuesday morning to go for coffee when his doorbell chimed. Opening the door he saw Ginny Walters standing there and invited her in.

"What brings you here?"

"I am hoping you can help a daughter of a friend of mine who needs some legal advice. Tony told me you were a pretty good attorney."

"Tony does embellish things a little but that is neither here nor there. What is the problem?

"This friend's daughter Beth is divorced and is an elementary school teacher and needs some legal help. She has received some legal papers that she doesn't know what to do with. I was hoping you could look at them and tell her what she should do."

"I am not licensed to practice in Florida so I can't give any official legal advice but I can look at the papers to see what is going on. When can I see these papers?"

"Beth is teaching today but I can get a message to her asking her to come here later this afternoon."

"Okay, I will be here waiting for her."

Kyle took in a movie that afternoon but he was back at the condo when at four he heard his doorbell chime. Opening the door he observed a tall slim lady standing there. She wore a blue suit and he could see that she was carrying a briefcase.

In a no nonsense type voice she said, "I am Beth Dunaway. Ginny Walters said you could look at some papers for me and give me some advice."

Kyle invited her in and then directed her to a chair by the dining room table. He asked her before she showed him any papers to tell him what was going on.

"About two years ago my son Kevin was trying to earn some money for college. He was driving two people to the airport in my car when a late model Mercedes made a sudden stop in front of my son. Kevin tried but he couldn't stop in time and hit the rear of the Mercedes denting the bumper and damaging the tail light. There was very little damage to my car. We reported the damage to my insurance company who investigated. After some time they sent me a letter saying the policy doesn't cover accidents when the car is used as a livery service which they said it was in this instance."

"Some months later I received a letter from the other insurance company who wanted me to pay $1845 for the damage done to the other car. I wrote them back say their driver was a fault because of the sudden stop he made. About two months after that a man came to my house and handed me some papers that said they were suing me for the amount of this damage. I brought these papers to my insurance agent but he wasn't in. I left the papers with his secretary. Three days later I received these papers back in the mail along with a letter from my insurance agent saying that he too had receive a copy of the letter from the claims agent saying that the policy doesn't cover accidents if the car is used as a livery vehicle. He was sorry but there was nothing they could do."

"I didn't know what to do so I didn't do anything. Now I received these papers saying there has been a default judgement entered against me."

While she was telling him what had happened Kyle was observing her. She wasn't beautiful but she was attractive in her own way. She had short dark hair, a slim figure and small breasts. She also had a business demeanor in how she conversed. He thought that as a teacher all she would need to do to an unruly class was give them a serious look and raise one eyebrow which would bring them under control.

"Let me see the papers you have on this."

Beth opened her briefcase and handed Kyle a folder that contained quite a bit of correspondence. Kyle read the papers which confirmed what Beth had related to Kyle about what had transpired. She had kept all of the papers or copies of them and appeared to be a highly organized individual.

Pushing back in his chair a little Kyle said, "I think what we have here is a good news bad news situation. The bad news is that the insurance company is right when they say the policy doesn't cover accidents when the car is being used in the livery service for a fee. The good news is that the agent in sending you back the suit papers made a serious mistake. Without getting too technical the insurance policy imposes two obligations on the insurance company, a duty to indemnify but also a duty to defend. If there is an exclusion that applies in a claim the insurance company can't just simply decide that there is no coverage. They need to go before a judge by filing a law suit to have the judge agree with their assessment. It would have been an expensive proposition in this instance to proceed that way because of the legal expenses involved in hiring two law firms, one to defend this law suit initially and one to ask the judge to confirm that the exclusion applies. When the claim is small, which it is in this case, the insurance company normally just settles the claim as it would cost the company more in legal expenses paying the attorneys to confirm that the exclusion applies."

"The agent in sending the suit papers back to you in my and I think the court's opinion would be that the insurance company violated their duty to defend you. Because of that they can't use that exclusion to deny coverage. Let me draft a letter under your signature to your insurance company explaining the situation and demanding that they take over the handling and settlement of this claim."