St. Joe Minerals Corp. v. Zurich Ins. Co.

Bien & Summers and Elliot L. Bien, San Francisco, for Amicus Curiae Insurance Environmental Litigation Association.

This case forces us to confront what happens when the one final judgment rule in appellate procedure collides with the piecemeal adjudication of a liability insurer's two basic duties to its insured—the duty to defend a lawsuit brought against the insured, and the duty to indemnify if the insured loses that lawsuit. As we explain below, the one final judgment rule is a statutorily based system of rationing access to the appellate courts. Here, we have a purported "appeal" by an insurance company from a minute order adjudicating only one of four of the plaintiff insured's four causes of action against the company. We are no doubt going to disappoint both sides and amicus curiae by dismissing this appeal: They might not be able to agree on much of anything else, but they all want us to reach the merits of the insurer's contentions.

However, fidelity to the rationing scheme enacted by the Legislature requires us to dismiss. The rules of appellate procedure should not be bent just because two well-funded litigants can generate a tremendous amount of paper…