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11/28/00

SUPREME COURT OF LOUISIANA
No. 00-CC-0424

DAVID BENOIT Versus ALLSTATE INSURANCE COMPANY

ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE COURT OF APPEAL, FIFTH CIRCUIT, PARISH OF JEFFERSON

LEMMON, Justice La. Code Civ. Proc. art. 1732(1) specifies a minimum monetary threshold for the availability of a jury trial. Prior to 1989, the statutory standard for determining the monetary threshold for a jury trial was the "amount in dispute." La. Acts 1989, No. 107, changed the standard to the amount of at least one "individual petitioner's cause of action."1 The present case, which involves a personal injury claim by a single individual plaintiff against his own uninsured/underinsured motorist (UM) insurance carrier, raises the issue of whether the amount plaintiff received in settlement from another insurer must be taken into consideration in determining the amount of his "cause of action" against the lone defendant in this suit at the time the right to jury trial is litigated.

Because La. Code Civ. Proc. art. 1732 provides the situations in which a jury trial is not available, there is an awkward double negative in the statement of the monetary threshold, which prohibits a jury trial in "[a] suit where no individual petitioner's cause of action exceeds fifty thousand dollars exclusive of interest and costs." That threshold clearly makes a jury unavailable unless the amount of at least one individual petitioner's cause of action exceeds $50,000.

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Facts After plaintiff was seriously injured in a rear-end collision, the tortfeasor's liability insurer paid its $100,000 policy limits, and plaintiff executed a settlement releasing his claims against the tortfeasor and the tortfeasor's insurer. Thereafter, plaintiff commenced this action against his own UM insurer, Allstate Insurance Company, to collect Allstate's $10,000 policy limits. In its answer, Allstate requested a jury trial. At a June 3, 1999 status conference, the trial court, sua sponte, struck the jury demand, stating: The Court struck the defendant's jury demand because [the tortfeasor's insurer] has paid $100,000, and, thereafter, plaintiff has stipulated that his remaining demand is for the $10,000 uninsured/underinsured motorist limits afforded by the Allstate policy which, accordingly, deems the amount in dispute to be $10,000. (emphasis added). The Court of Appeal for the Fifth Circuit denied defendant's application for supervisory writs, stating: On the showing made we see no error in the trial court ruling striking the defendant's jury demand where defendant's liability is limited to the $10,000 limits of the policy and plaintiff is seeking no more than that. See Thibert v. Smith, 560 So. 2d 553 (La.App. 1st Cir. 1990); Deterville v. Impastato, 539 So. 2d 1013 (La.App. 4th Cir. 1989). This court granted defendant's application for certiorari and remanded the case to the intermediate court for briefing, argument and opinion. 99-2665 (La. 11/19/99), 749 So. 2d 660. On remand, the Fifth Circuit again affirmed the trial court's decision to strike the jury demand. In so doing, the Fifth Circuit declined to follow the Fourth Circuit's recent decision in Hurst v. Louitt, 99-1120 (La.App. 4th Cir. 9/24/99), 745 So. 2d 687, which held that the Legislature's selection of the phrase "petitioner's cause of action" was intended to mean "the total recovery the plaintiff expects to receive, including pre-

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trial settlements and tenders." The Fifth Circuit distinguished the present case factually from Hurst, noting that Hurst involved a suit originally filed against several defendants (some of whom settled prior to trial) asserting a claim in excess of $50,000, while the present case from the outset has been against only one defendant and has never involved a claim for over $50,000. An additional distinction was that the UM policy limits in Hurst were $100,000, while the plaintiff's recovery in the present case is limited to a fixed amount of the policy limits of $10,000. Finally, the Fifth Circuit opined that the two cases cited in its earlier writ denial were still "good law" and were not affected by the 1989 amendment to La. Code Civ. Proc. art. 1732(1). In effect, the Fifth Circuit held that amounts received by a petitioner in settlement are not considered in calculating whether at least one "individual petitioner's cause of action exceeds" the monetary threshold. We granted defendant's application for certiorari to resolve this conflict between the Fourth and Fifth Circuits. 99-2559 (La. 1/7/00), 758 So. 2d 143. See La. S.Ct.R. X

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