New Hampshire Ins Co v. Joliet Equip Corp

Pursuant to 5th Cir. R. 47.5, the court has determined that
this opinion should not be published and is not precedent except
under the limited circumstances set forth in 5th Cir. R. 47.5.4.
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT
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No. 99-20734
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NEW HAMPSHIRE INSURANCE COMPANY,
Plaintiff-Counter Defendant-Appellee,
versus
JOLIET EQUIPMENT CORPORATION,
Defendant-Counter Claimant-Appellant.
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Appeal from the United States District Court
For the Southern District of Texas
(H-97-CV-2563)
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May 5, 2000
Before WIENER, BENAVIDES, and PARKER, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:*
In this appeal in a declaratory judgment action, decided under
Illinois insurance law, Defendant-CounterClaimant-Appellant, Joliet
Equipment Corporation (“Joliet”) seeks reversal of the district
court’s determination that the comprehensive general liability
policies issued by Plaintiff-CounterDefendant-Appellee New
Hampshire Insurance Company (“New Hampshire”) does not require New
Hampshire to provide legal defense to Joliet in a suit filed
against it in federal district court in Utah by Atlas Steel
Corporation for damages alleged to have resulted from the
malfunction of electric motors and related equipment purchased by
Atlas from Joliet. Joliet asserts that the district court erred in

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granting summary judgment to New Hampshire by misapplying
Illinois’s test for coverage, being a so-called “eight-corners”
test (comparing the complaint in the underlying lawsuit to the
policy) plus “facts that are true but unpleaded.”
After conducting our de novo review of the district court’s
grant of summary judgment in favor of New Hampshire in light of the
facts revealed by the record on appeal and the pertinent law as
related in the appellate briefs of the parties, and after hearing
oral argument by able counsel for the parties, we are persuaded
that the facts outside the complaint and the policy relied on by
Joliet are insufficient to overcome an eight-corners determination
that legal defense in the underlying litigation is not owed to
Joliet by New Hampshire. We therefore conclude that summary
judgment was not improvidently granted by the district court and,
for essentially the same reasons given by the district court in its
ruling of June 30, 1999, we affirm that court’s grant of New
Hampshire’s Motion for Summary Judgment.
AFFIRMED.

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