Court Determines Estoppel Bars Enforcement of Suit Limitation

By Don R. Sampen, published, Chicago Daily Law Bulletin, June 3, 2025

The 1st District Appellate Court recently held that an insurer was equitably estopped from enforcing a two-year suit limitation provision in its policy because it had failed to timely provide the insured a copy of the policy containing the limitation provision.

The case is Monroy-Perez v. Sentry Select Insurance Co., 2025 IL App (1st) 241711 (May 13). The insured, Gonzalo Monroy-Perez, was represented by Cray Huber Horstman Heil & VanAusdal LLC of Chicago, Acevedo Law Inc. of Carpentersville and Matthew D. Robinson of Geneva. Kopka Pinkus Dolin of Chicago represented the insurer, Sentry.

Monroy-Perez was a passenger in a truck owned and insured by his employer in September 2019 when the truck was struck by another vehicle, leaving him injured. Sentry provided automobile coverage for the employer, and Monroy-Perez sought underinsured coverage for his damages exceeding recovery from the other driver and his workers’ compensation benefits.

In January 2020, a few months after the accident, Monroy-Perez’s attorney gave Sentry notice of Monroy-Perez’s underinsured claim, requested a copy of the employer’s policy, and also requested arbitration. Thereafter, Monroy-Perez understood that arbitration was being placed on hold pending resolution of other payments, and he cooperated with Sentry in providing other requested information.

Following further requests for a copy of the policy and for arbitration, Sentry for the first time provided Monroy-Perez the policy in January 2023. The policy provided, among other things, that any suit against Sentry had to be filed within two years of the accident unless arbitration had commenced prior to then.

Regarding arbitration, the policy also stated that the matter could be arbitrated only if Sentry and the insured “do not agree as to the amount of damages that are recoverable.”

After another demand for arbitration, Monroy-Perez brought the instant lawsuit in March 2023 seeking coverage in excess of $100,000. Sentry moved to dismiss, arguing in part that Monroy-Perez had missed the two-year deadline for bringing suit.

It also argued that Monroy-Perez’s request for arbitration in January 2020 was ineffective because the parties at that time had not discussed damages and therefore had not reached an impasse. The trial court agreed with Sentry and dismissed the lawsuit. Monroy-Perez then moved to reconsider, raising arguments based on tolling and estoppel for the first time. The trial court denied that motion, and Monroy-Perez brought this appeal.

Forfeiture

In an opinion by Justice Rena M. Van Tine, the 1st District reversed. She initially addressed whether Monroy-Perez’s arguments based on tolling and estoppel had been forfeited because they were raised for the first time on reconsideration in the trial court. While agreeing that forfeiture could apply for that reason, she observed that Sentry had not actually raised forfeiture in the appeal and thereby had forfeited the forfeiture claim.

In addition, however, she noted that forfeiture is a limitation on the parties and not the court. And because the issues were straightforward in this case and the record was being reviewed de novo, the court would decline to find forfeiture by Monroy-Perez and would address the merits.

Limitations and Estoppel

Turning to the two-year limitations period, Van Tine found it potentially enforceable and not tolled by virtue of Monroy-Perez’s request for arbitration in January 2020. She relied mainly on the policy provision that arbitration was available only if Sentry and the insured “do not agree” on damages recoverable. Because Sentry was not at the point of having an opinion of any kind in January 2020, the request for arbitration was premature.

She nonetheless found that Sentry would be estopped from enforcing the two-year suit limitation period. Estoppel in the insurance context, she wrote, requires that the insured show that he or she was misled by the insurer’s representations and that the insured relied on those representations.

Here, Monroy-Perez had requested a copy of the policy in January 2020, it was not provided to him until well after the two-year deadline, and Sentry had not otherwise informed Monroy-Perez of the limitations period or the requirements for demanding arbitration. Sentry’s unjustified refusal to provide Monroy-Perez with the policy until more than a year after the limitations period expired resulted in the untimely filing of the complaint.

Van Tine rejected Sentry’s argument that it could not provide the policy to Monroy-Perez because of insurance regulations, because it did, in fact, provide him a copy but only after the deadline. She also rejected the argument that Sentry had made no affirmative misrepresentation to Monroy-Perez, because of case law establishing that estoppel may arise from silence as well as words.

The court therefore reversed the dismissal of Monroy-Perez’s complaint and remanded.

Key Points

• Arguments raised for the first time in a motion to reconsider in the trial court may be forfeited on appeal, but only if the opposing party timely raises forfeiture on appeal.
  
• An insurer’s failure to provide an insured a copy of the policy, or at least inform the insured of key provisions, may give rise to an estoppel against the insurer preventing enforcement of such provisions.