Troy Lee Gentry of the country music group Montgomery Gentry. (Credit: Tech. Sgt. Michael R. Holzworth/U.S. Air Force via Wikimedia Commons)
On September 8, 2017, Gentry took a ride in a helicopter in Medford that crashed almost immediately after lifting off the ground. Angela K. Gentry, Troy's widow, alleged that Flying W, a public airport and resort, entered into a contract with her husband's band that said the resort would maintain a general liability insurance policy of $5 million, according to the opinion.
Gentry alleged that Flying W breached that contract when a collection of insurance companies, including Chubb, denied her claim. And Gentry further claimed that insurance brokers Shannon & Luchs and Aviation Insurance Managers are liable to her as a third-party beneficiary over a $3 million policy they obtained for Flying W through ACE Property and Casualty, according to the opinion.
The defendant insurers moved to dismiss two counts of Gentry's complaint, including count four, which sought a declaratory judgment against Shannon & Luchs or AIM, and count five, a breach-of-contract count levied against Flying W. In count four, Gentry asked the court for a declaration that Shannon & Luchs or AIM that the policy of insurance obtained from ACE did not afford the coverage requested by Flying W, according to the opinion.
U.S. District Judge Michael A. Shipp wrote that Gentry cannot be considered a third-party beneficiary of any agreement between Flying W and Shannon & Luchs or AIM. On this point, Shipp said the test is "whether the contracting parties intended that a third party should receive a benefit which might be enforced in the courts."
"Where the plaintiff 'has neither provided a copy' nor 'referenced a single provision from the disputed contract,' the plaintiff has not sufficiently alleged 'nor can the court ascertain' whether the plaintiff is a beneficiary at all," Shipp said, citing a U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey case, Kaminski v. Township of Toms River.
Gentry's opposition to the motion to dismiss on count four centered on a New Jersey Appellate Division holding in Wermann v. Aratusa, Shipp said. In that case, the judge said, the court held that an injured party had a valid claim as a third-party beneficiary of a contractual agreement between an insured and an insured's agent because members of the general public are deemed intended beneficiaries of such a contract. However, in Kurtanidze v. StarNet Insurance, the New Jersey District Court distinguished that Wermann was limited to claims "arising from a breach of a contractual duty to the insured to procure or maintain insurance coverage."
Shipp found the same reasoning applied to Gentry's breach-of-contract claim and said that her negligence claim fares no better.
"In general, to state a claim for breach of contract, plaintiff must, at the very least, adequately allege the existence of a contract between the parties," Shipp said. As to the negligence claim, the judge said that Gentry failed to allege that Shannon & Luchs and AIM owed her a duty. Court four was dismissed for failure to state a claim.
As for count five, Gentry requested that the court declare that the insurance policy obtained from ACE did not afford the requested coverage by Flying W. The resort did not argue that Gentry was the intended third-party beneficiary of the coverage. But Flying W did argue that it procured the insurance coverage required by the contract and that the breach-of-contract claim is moot because any damages would be duplicative of judgment in another lawsuit filed by Gentry in New Jersey Superior Court, according to the opinion.
Gentry's argument on the breach of contract against Flying W does not focus on the contract between the resort and Montgomery Gentry, but on the contract procuring the ACE policy between Flying W and AIM and Shannon & Luchs.
Shipp called Gentry's argument a "threadbare recital" that a separate contract exists and a "vague claim" of her deceased husband's involvement and of her beneficiary status. The court granted dismissal of claim five as well.
Counsel to Gentry, The Wolk Law Firm, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Likewise, counsel to Flying W, Trevor J. Cooney of Archer & Greiner, and counsel to ACE, Timothy M. Jabbour of Tressler, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Both counsel to AIM, Jay Weintraub of Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith, and counsel to Shannon & Luchs, Ronald A. Giller of Gordon & Rees, declined to comment for this report.
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