Rhode Island Recovery and Transport, LLC v. Carriage Insurance Agency, Inc.

Summary

This is a memorandum and order from the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island ruling on defendant's motion for summary judgment and plaintiff's motion to amend in an insurance agent malpractice case. The court applied Rhode Island's three-year statute of limitations for insurance agent malpractice to most claims, but allowed two fraud claims to proceed. The plaintiff's motion to amend was denied as moot.

Holdings

1. Rhode Island General Laws § 9-1-14.1 applies to plaintiff's negligence claim because the claim challenged the quality, effectiveness, nature, or propriety of the professional insurance services Carriage rendered.
2. The three-year limitations period under § 9-1-14.1 applies to plaintiff's breach-of-contract and breach-of-fiduciary-duty claims because those claims were coextensive with the negligence claim and arose from the same alleged failure to procure appropriate insurance coverage.
3. Defendant did not establish entitlement to summary judgment on the fraudulent-misrepresentation and fraudulent-concealment claims because it argued only that those claims were duplicative of negligence, and the court found them not duplicative.
4. The discovery-rule exception did not toll the limitations period because plaintiff was on objective notice of a potential claim by December 2018, when it threatened to sue Carriage over the failure to obtain additional-insured coverage.
5. The motion for leave to amend was denied as moot because the proposed allegations concerned claims on which defendant was entitled to summary judgment, and the additional allegations would not affect their timeliness.

Questions Presented

1. Whether Rhode Island's three-year statute of limitations for insurance-agent malpractice applied to plaintiff's negligence, breach-of-contract, and breach-of-fiduciary-duty claims.
2. Whether the same three-year limitations period applied to plaintiff's fraudulent misrepresentation and fraudulent concealment claims on the arguments presented by defendant.
3. Whether the discovery-rule exception tolled the limitations period because plaintiff allegedly learned additional facts in 2022 and 2025.
4. Whether plaintiff's motion for leave to file a second amended complaint remained viable after summary judgment disposed of the claims addressed by the proposed allegations.

Disposition

other