Ferguson

What happens when an insurance company includes a policy endorsement meant to reduce the dollar limits to which it will respond for its policyholder’s liability, but does so by reference to a non-existent standard? What should happen: the endorsement is ineffective to reduce those limits.

Plaintiff-Appellant, John M. Ferguson, filed this action on behalf of his son, Richard F. McLeod, in Idaho state court seeking a declaratory judgment as to the “general liability limit” of the insurance policy (“the Policy”) sold to the Coeur d’Alene School District by the Defendant-Appel-lee, Coregis Insurance Company. Coregis removed the action to federal district court, invoking that court’s diversity jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1332 . Coregis then filed a motion for summary judgment; Ferguson responded and filed a cross-motion for summary judgment. The district court denied Ferguson’s motion, but granted Coregis’s.

We review the district court’s rulings on summary judgment de novo. Summers v. A. Teichert & Son, Inc., 127 F.3d 1150, 1152 (9th Cir.1997). We reverse both the district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of Coregis, and its denial of Ferguson’s cross-motion for…