Full Opinion

USCA11 Case: 25-13457 Document: 29-1 Date Filed: 11/05/2026 Page: 1 of 8 NOT FOR PUBLICATION In the United States Court of Appeals For the Eleventh Circuit ____________________ No. 25-13457 Non-Argument Calendar ____________________ PROGRESSIVE EXPRESS INSURANCE COMPANY, Plaintiff-Appellee, versus YVETTE RIVERA, as Personal Representative of the Estate of Glady Yvette Borcela, Deceased, Defendant-Appellant, DUNIER DE CASTRO ACHON, an individual, et al., Defendants. ____________________ Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida D.C. Docket No. 1:24-cv-22876-RKA ____________________ Before ROSENBAUM, GRANT, and LUCK, Circuit Judges. USCA11 Case: 25-13457 Document: 29-1 Date Filed: 11/05/2026 Page: 2 of 8 2 Opinion of the Court 25-13457 PER CURIAM: The district court granted summary judgment for Progres- sive Express Insurance Company on its declaratory judgment claim, concluding that it owed its tortfeasor insureds no duty to defend against tort claimant Yvette Rivera’s state court personal in- jury lawsuit. Rivera appeals the summary judgment for Progres- sive. We dismiss the appeal because Rivera lacks appellate stand- ing. FACTUAL BACKGROUND In 2022, Glady Yvette Borcela and Natalia Harrell got into an argument while sharing a late-night Uber ride in Miami. While in the car, Harrell pulled a gun from her purse, threatened Borcela, and then shot and killed her. In 2024, Rivera, Borcela’s mother and personal representa- tive of her estate, sued Uber, two of its subsidiaries, the driver, and the car owner in Florida state court, asserting wrongful death claims. The driver was negligent, the lawsuit alleged, because he continued driving despite Harrell’s threats, preventing Borcela’s es- cape. The car owner, Uber, and Uber’s subsidiaries were vicari- ously liable for the driver’s actions, the allegations continued, and Uber and its subsidiaries were themselves negligent in selecting and training the driver. The state court lawsuit is still pending. Progressive insured Uber, the Uber subsidiaries, the driver, and the car owner under a rideshare liability policy. The policy pro- vided coverage for damages “because of an accident” “arising out USCA11 Case: 25-13457 Document: 29-1 Date Filed: 11/05/2026 Page: 3 of 8 25-13457 Opinion of the Court 3 of the ownership, maintenance or use of an insured auto.” An “ac- cident” under the policy was defined as “a sudden, unexpected and unintended event that cause[d] bodily injury or property damage.” And the policy excluded from coverage damages “either expected by or caused intentionally by, or at the direction of, the insured.” PROCEDURAL HISTORY Progressive filed this declaratory judgment action shortly af- ter Rivera filed suit in Florida state court. Each of the complaint’s three counts seeks the same relief: a declaration that Progressive owed none of its tortfeasor insureds a duty to defend or indemnify Rivera’s claims. Count one asked for a declaration that the shoot- ing did not “arise out of the ownership, maintenance, or use” of the car. Count two sought a declaration that the shooting did not meet the policy’s definition of an “accident.” And count three re- quested a declaration that the intentional injury exclusion pre- cluded coverage (assuming the shooting was covered by the pol- icy). Although Progressive sued Rivera, Uber, an Uber subsidiary, the driver, and the car owner, by the time for summary judgment, only Rivera remained. The driver and the car owner never ap- peared, so the clerk entered defaults against them. Uber and its subsidiary agreed with Progressive that there was no coverage, so, on their motion, they were dismissed as parties to the declaratory judgment action. After the district court stayed Progressive’s duty- to-indemnify claim pending the resolution of the state court law- suit, Progressive and Rivera litigated the duty-to-defend claim. USCA11 Case: 25-13457 Document: 29-1 Date Filed: 11/05/2026 Page: 4 of 8 4 Opinion of the Court 25-13457 Progressive moved for summary judgment on count one, ar- guing that the shooting did not “arise out of ” the ownership, maintenance, or use of the insured car. For the policy to apply, the injury “must have arisen out of the inherent nature of the automo- bile,” but “Borcela was not hit by a car” or killed “in a car crash,” Progressive continued. Rivera argued Florida law was not so de- manding—it required only an injury “incident to” the car, with “some level of causation greater than coincidence.” It was enough, Rivera reasoned, that Borcela was trapped inside the car. The district court granted summary judgment for Progres- sive on count one. Adopting Rivera’s reading of Florida law, the district court concluded that the shooting still lacked a causal con- nection to the car. The state court complaint made clear, the dis- trict court explained, “that the shooting occurred because Harrell and Borcela got into” an argument. Had the argument begun “mere minutes earlier (or later), Harrell could have shot and killed Borcela without being in” the car. It was thus “mere ‘coincidence,’” falling short of the causation requirement, that Harrell and Borcela were in the car “when they got into their fatal argument.” The district court granted summary judgment for Progres- sive on count one and certified under Federal Rule of Civil Proce- dure 54(b) that there was no just reason for delay in the entry of final judgment as to that count. With the certification, Rivera ap- peals the summary judgment for Progressive on count one. USCA11 Case: 25-13457 Document: 29-1 Date Filed: 11/05/2026 Page: 5 of 8 25-13457 Opinion of the Court 5 STANDARD OF REVIEW “We review questions of appellate standing de novo.” Kim- berly Regenesis, LLC v. Lee County, 64 F.4th 1253, 1258 (11th Cir. 2023) (alteration adopted). DISCUSSION Rivera challenges the district court’s summary judgment for Progressive on count one and argues that the insurance company had a duty to defend its insureds (Uber, the Uber subsidiaries, the driver, and the car owner) in her state court lawsuit. But because our court is one of limited jurisdiction, “the first and fundamental question” in every appeal is “that of jurisdiction.” United States v. Amodeo, 916 F.3d 967, 970–71 (11th Cir. 2019). Rivera’s challenge “frames our” jurisdictional review. Kimberly Regenesis, LLC, 64 F.4th at 1258. Article III limits our jurisdiction to cases and controversies. Amodeo, 916 F.3d at 971. “To have a case or controversy, a litigant must establish that he has standing, which must exist throughout all stages of litigation.” Id. (citation modified). The standard is fa- miliar: To demonstrate standing, litigants must show an injury in fact, causation, and redressability. See Kimberly Regenesis, LLC, 64 F.4th at 1259. But the standard is not identical at all stages of litiga- tion. “The most obvious difference is that standing to appeal re- quires an injury caused by the judgment while standing to bring suit requires an injury caused by the underlying facts.” Id. (citation modified). So, to establish appellate standing, a litigant must show that a judgment injured her “in a personal and individual way.” USCA11 Case: 25-13457 Document: 29-1 Date Filed: 11/05/2026 Page: 6 of 8 6 Opinion of the Court 25-13457 Amodeo, 916 F.3d at 971. An appellant lacks standing to appeal— and we lack jurisdiction to consider—a judgment that does not ad- versely affect her interests. Wolff v. Cash 4 Titles, 351 F.3d 1348, 1354 (11th Cir. 2003). Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company v. Barrow, 29 F.4th 1299 (11th Cir. 2022), applied these principles to an insurance declara- tory judgment action like this one. Id. at 1301. There, a state court tort claimant notified the tortfeasor’s insurer that, “if [she] secured a judgment,” she intended to seek satisfaction from the tortfeasor’s liability policy. Id. The insurer sought a declaratory judgment in federal court, naming (as usual in these kinds of suits) its tortfeasor insureds and the tort claimant as defendants. Id. The insureds did not appear and, after dismissing the insurer’s duty-to-indemnify claim as unripe, the district court granted summary judgment for the insurer on its duty-to-defend claim. Id. The state court tort claimant appealed, but we dismissed her appeal because she was not injured by the district court’s order. Id. at 1303. A tort claimant, we explained, “wants a weak defense in her state court action, not a strong one.” Id. (citation modified). So, the order absolving the insurer’s defense obligation worked in the claimant’s favor (not against it) by weakening any defense to her state court claims. Id. at 1302. Moreover, we noted, “the duty to defend is a right affecting only the obligations of the insurer vis-a- vis the insured.” Id. at 1303 (citation modified). The “other parties do not have standing to enforce that right on behalf of the insured.” Id. (citation modified). USCA11 Case: 25-13457 Document: 29-1 Date Filed: 11/05/2026 Page: 7 of 8 25-13457 Opinion of the Court 7 For that reason, we distinguished the Barrow tort claimant from the claimant in Dairyland Insurance Company v. Makover, 654 F.2d 1120 (5th Cir. Unit B 1981), 1 who “had standing as a ‘potential judgment creditor’” to appeal the district court’s adverse duty-to- indemnify determination. Barrow, 29 F.4th at 1302 (quoting Dairy- land Ins. Co., 654 F.2d at 1123). The district court in Barrow reached only the duty-to-defend determination—an obligation “of the in- surer vis-a-vis the insured”—not the duty to indemnify—an obliga- tion which has “a direct bearing on whether the tort claimant [can] recover from the insurer.” Id. at 1302–03. We are bound by Barrow. Rivera, like the Barrow tort claimant, lacks appellate stand- ing because she is not aggrieved by the district court’s order. As in Barrow, the district court here decided only that Progressive owed its insureds no duty to defend the state court lawsuit. Because that determination weakened any defense to her claims, Rivera was not injured by it. And like in Barrow, the tortfeasor insureds did not litigate or appeal the merits here. Only Rivera, the tort claimant, did. But Rivera’s challenge here concerns only Progressive’s obli- gations to its insureds, not its obligations to her. Rivera suggests the district court’s order nonetheless im- pacts her. “[U]nder Florida law, the insurer cannot have a duty to indemnify” if there is no duty to defend, she says, and so our insight would help her know whether the policy might ultimately fund a 1 See Stein v Reynolds Sec., Inc., 667 F.2d 33, 34 (11th Cir. 1982) (adopting as binding precedent in the Eleventh Circuit all decisions made by Unit B of the former Fifth Circuit). USCA11 Case: 25-13457 Document: 29-1 Date Filed: 11/05/2026 Page: 8 of 8 8 Opinion of the Court 25-13457 settlement or satisfy a judgment. But that contention is insufficient to support Article III standing. She needs to show more than a “keen interest in the issue.” Amodeo, 916 F.3d at 971. And she needs to show more than conjecture. Wolff, 351 F.3d at 1353. Because the district court stayed the indemnity issue pending resolution of the state court lawsuit, there’s no telling what could change in the meantime, assuming judgment ever issues in the state court law- suit. Since Rivera does not bring a case or controversy, we lack jurisdiction to consider her appeal. We therefore must dismiss it. APPEAL DISMISSED.