United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit ____________________ No. 20-2962 CONTINENTAL WESTERN INSURANCE COMPANY, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. COUNTRY MUTUAL INSURANCE COMPANY, Defendant-Appellant. ____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Illinois. No. 17-cv-01231 — Nancy J. Rosenstengel, Chief Judge. ____________________

ARGUED APRIL 21, 2021 — DECIDED JUNE 24, 2021 ____________________

Before FLAUM, SCUDDER, and KIRSCH, Circuit Judges. FLAUM, Circuit Judge. In the aftermath of a serious collision between an ambulance and semi-truck, a question lingered: Who owned the ambulance? This inquiry turned contentious as two insurance companies looked to sidestep primary cov- erage obligations arising from three post-accident lawsuits. The ambulance service’s formation through a joint enterprise and status as a separately insured party complicated the re- sultant ownership determination. The district court 2 No. 20-2962 determined that defendant-appellant Country Mutual Insur- ance Company’s named insured owned the ambulance, hold- ing Country Mutual responsible for primary coverage for the defense costs in question. Accordingly, the district court found that plaintiff-appellee Continental Western Insurance Company’s named insured did not own the ambulance such that Continental only owed coverage in excess of Country Mutual’s primary coverage. After granting summary judg- ment to Continental on these grounds, the court awarded Continental attorney’s fees and defense costs equal to the amounts that Country Mutual should have covered but that Continental, in fact, incurred to defend its insured in the three underlying lawsuits. Considering the record evidence strongly reflects the parties’ intent that Country Mutual’s in- sured owned the ambulance and considering the reasonable- ness of the resulting award of attorney’s fees under Illinois law, we affirm the district court.

I. Background

A. Factual Background Alhambra and Hamel are two villages located in southern Illinois. In 1989, the Hamel Fire Protection District (“Hamel Fire”) and Alhambra Fire Protection District (“Alhambra Fire”) formed a joint venture called the Alhambra-Hamel Ambulance Service (the “Service”) to provide ambulance ser- vice to residents of both fire districts. On September 17, 2012, a Service-operated ambulance driven by Theodore Berg, Jr., collided with a semi-truck owned by Specialized Transportation, Inc. (hereinafter, the “accident”). The semi-truck driver Daniel Eddinger and his codriver Rayburn Conway were seriously injured in the No. 20-2962 3 accident. Ambulance passengers, including Michelle Logue, were also severely injured. The accident produced three lawsuits (hereinafter, the “underlying lawsuits”). 1 Continental defended Hamel Fire in each of the underlying lawsuits but only after first tendering them to Country Mutual. Country Mutual ignored each ten- der. All three cases eventually settled, and Continental paid all attorney’s fees assessed for Hamel Fire’s defenses. The question before us now is which insurance com- pany—Continental or Country Mutual—is responsible for paying the defense fees that Continental incurred to defend Hamel Fire in the underlying lawsuits. The parties agree this question turns exclusively on who owned the ambulance in- volved in the accident, a 2010 Freightliner Ambulance with a vehicle identification number 1FVACWDU2ADAN8141 (hereinafter, the “ambulance”). Several documents shed light on which entity owned the ambulance. On the one