In Brown v. Flowers, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a denial of coverage for a judgment rendered against a corrections officer for sexual abuse, finding that the officer was not acting within the scope of duties to come within coverage and that a sexual abuse exclusion applied.
The case arose when a pretrial detainee at the Pontotoc County Justice Center in Oklahoma sued one of her jail guards, Roger Flowers, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Oklahoma alleging that Flowers “raped her while in custody in violation of her constitutional rights.” The Association of County Commissioners of Oklahoma Self-Insured Group (ACCO-SIG), which had issued a liability coverage agreement to Pontotoc County, defended Flowers in the liability action under a full reservation of rights. After motion practice and an unsuccessful interlocutory appeal by Flowers of the denial of his motion for summary judgment, the case proceeded to a jury trial.
The civil rights claim was framed under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The district court instructed the jury that the constitutional right at issue was the right of “a pre-trial detainee to be secure in her bodily integrity and free from sexual intercourse imposed upon her by jailers through coercion while held in custody.” The instructions further directed that if the jury found that Flowers “coerced [the detainee] to engage in sexual intercourse with him, this is sufficient to show an objective harm that violated [the detainee’s] Fourteenth Amendment rights.” Conversely, consensual intercourse would defeat the claim. The jury returned a verdict for the detainee and awarded her $75,000 in damages, plus post-judgment interest.
For more than a year following the verdict, the judgment remained unpaid and the detainee filed a motion for enforcement of garnishment to compel ACCO-SIG to pay the judgment. She contended that the agreement covered Flowers’ conduct and that ACCO-SIG was obligated to indemnify Flowers for the judgment. In opposition, ACCO-SIG contended that Flowers’ actions were not covered because they were outside the agreement’s scope of duties and because exclusions applied.
Pursuant to the agreement, ACCO-SIG was required to pay “those sums the Plan Member becomes legally obligated to pay as Damages…because of Bodily Injury.” County employees like Flowers qualified as “additional Plan Members” only “while performing and acting within the Scope of Duties for a Named Plan Member.” “Scope of duties” was defined as “performance by an Employee acting in good faith within the duties of the Employee’s office or employment,” and expressly excluded “any dishonest, criminal, fraudulent, bad faith, reckless, wanton or malicious act” and “any act that results in a Claim of alleged Sexual Abuse,” which “are not fairly and naturally incident to any Plan Member’s business.” “Sexual abuse” was defined as “any actual, attempted or alleged sexual act … which causes physical and/or mental injuries,” with enumerated examples like “sexual assault,” “sexual advances of any kind,” and “rape.” The agreement also contained exclusions for criminal acts and actions outside the employee’s scope of duties.
The district court found that Flowers did not act within the scope of duties and thus was not a plan member under the agreement. Specifically, the district court stated, the detainee could not “seriously argue that sexual intercourse with an inmate is a good faith act within Flowers’ duties as a jailer.” The court also ruled that the agreement’s bodily injury coverages did not apply for the same reason and further ruled that even if Flowers was a plan member (he was not), the sexual abuse exclusion applied.
The detainee appealed to the Tenth Circuit contending that the court erred in finding no coverage, that whether Flowers acted outside the scope of duties was a jury question, and that the reasonable expectations doctrine applied.
On appeal, citing to contract principles under Oklahoma law, the court noted that “parties are free to contract for insurance that covers whatever risks they see fit, and they will be bound by the terms of the contract.” The court also noted that it “may not ‘rewrite’ the contract’s terms.”
With those guiding principles, the court’s analysis primarily turned on three main components: (1) the definition of “additional plan members”; (2) whether Flowers acted within the “scope of duties”; and (3) the agreement’s requirement that an employee act “in good faith within the duties of the employee’s office or employment.” At bottom, the court found that “[n]o reasonable juror could conclude that, when [Flowers] manipulated [the detainee] into having sex, [Flowers] acted honestly or with lawfulness of purpose within his duties as a jailer.” Thus, because Flowers was not acting within the scope of duties, he was not a plan member, and “none of the Agreement’s provisions applied to him.”
The court rejected the detainee’s argument that the district court decided a jury question. In doing so, the court concluded that even if it was a jury question, “the jury in the liability action implicitly answered it by returning a verdict for [the detainee].”
Similarly, the court rejected the detainee’s reasonable expectations argument. It noted that the reasonable expectations doctrine functions as an interpretive tool for ambiguous adhesion contracts. The court declined to apply the doctrine because the agreement was not a contract of adhesion and because the detainee did not identify any ambiguous term.
The case illustrates that even when coverage issues arise in post-judgment proceedings, courts are bound by the same rules of contract interpretation that apply in pre-suit and litigated matters.
