11th Circuit Seeks Clarity from Georgia and Florida Supreme Courts

In Allied Prop. & Cas. Ins. Co. v. Bloodworth Wholesale Drugs Inc., Nos. 24-11398, 25-11185, 2026 LX 376907 (11th Cir. June 11, 2026), the Eleventh Circuit asked the supreme courts of Georgia and Florida to clarify whether commercial general liability insurers must defend and potentially indemnify Publix Super Markets and drug wholesaler Bloodworth Wholesale Drugs in lawsuits alleging they helped fuel the opioid crisis. The appellate panel said state law is unclear on whether insurance policies covering damages “because of ‘bodily injury’” apply to opioid-related claims, making the issue one of first impression with potentially billions of dollars at stake for insurers and policyholders.

The request stems from separate lower-court rulings that sided with insurers. In Bloodworth’s case, a federal judge found the opioid-distribution claims did not involve a covered “occurrence.” In Publix’s case, a judge ruled that lawsuits by governments seeking reimbursement for opioid-related costs were not claims for damages “because of ‘bodily injury’” as required by the policies. While insurers point to similar pro-insurer decisions from Ohio and Delaware, the Eleventh Circuit said neither Georgia nor Florida has clearly resolved these questions and declined to predict how the states’ highest courts would rule.

Certification is a tool often under-utilized by federal courts that has led to major developments in coverage law in recent years. For example, certification from the Fifth Circuit initiated the landmark decision in Monroe Guar. Ins. Co. v. BITCO Gen. Ins. Corp., 640 S.W.3d 195, 203 (Tex. 2022) wherein the Supreme Court of Texas ruled that there were exceptions to the state’s “eight-corners” rule that generally forbid consideration of extrinsic evidence in determining an insurer’s duty to defend. Arguably, the very need to seek clarification in cases like those faced by the Eleventh Circuit is evidence of ambiguity in policy language. That uncertainty is in turn enough to decide in favor of a policyholder, particularly on a question of the insurer’s duty to defend that is governed by the standard of “potential coverage.” This is doubly true whenever the determinative issue is interpretation of an exclusion or other limitation on coverage.