NOT PRECEDENTIAL

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT 

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No. 21-1611

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TINA BUBONOVICH,

 Appellant

v.

STATE FARM MUTUAL AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE COMPANY; STATE 

FARM FIRE AND CASUALTY COMPANY; STATE FARM

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On Appeal from the United States District Court 

for the Western District of Pennsylvania

District Court No. 2-19-cv-01537

District Judge: The Honorable Cathy Bissoon

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Submitted Under Third Circuit L.A.R. 34.1 (a)

June 16, 2022

Before: HARDIMAN, SMITH, and FISHER, Circuit Judges

(Filed: July 6, 2022)

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OPINION*

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* This disposition is not an opinion of the full Court and pursuant to I.O.P. 5.7 does not 

constitute binding precedent
2

SMITH, Circuit Judge

Tina Bubonovich was involved in a two-car vehicular accident. After 

recovering the available limits of the other driver’s liability coverage and her own 

underinsured motorist (UIM) coverage, she filed a claim seeking the proceeds from

her resident son’s UIM coverage. When that claim was denied, she sued State 

Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company (State Farm Auto), State Farm Fire 

and Casualty Company (State Farm Fire), and State Farm, claiming that she was 

entitled to “stack” her son’s UIM coverage on top of her own recovery. The 

District Court dismissed State Farm Fire from the suit because it did not issue the 

disputed insurance policies, and it also dismissed State Farm because State Farm 

“is not a proper legal entity.” App’x at 4. The Court then granted State Farm 

Auto’s motion for summary judgment, ruling that Plaintiff could not “stack” her 

son’s UIM coverage because he had executed a valid stacking waiver. 

Plaintiff appeals, arguing that the District Court erred in granting summary 

judgment to State Farm Auto. Because we see no error, we will affirm the District

Court’s judgment.

I.

In 2015, the 2006 Scion xB that Plaintiff was driving was hit by another car

and she suffered serious injuries. The other driver’s insurance paid Plaintiff 

$50,000—the limit of his liability coverage. Pursuant to Plaintiff’s own State 
3

Farm Auto policy, State Farm paid her $25,000, the limit of her underinsured 

motorist coverage. 

Plaintiff resides with her son, Nicholas Bubonovich. Nicholas is the named 

insured on his own State Farm Auto insurance policy. That policy does not list

Plaintiff’s Scion as an insured vehicle and has a limit of $100,000 for UIM 

coverage. Nicholas, however, executed a UIM stacking rejection waiver as to his 

policy. Plaintiff made a UIM claim under Nicholas’s coverage, but State Farm 

Auto denied the claim based on Nicholas’s waiver of his right to “stack” coverage. 

Such coverage, State Farm Auto contended, was otherwise unavailable because of

the household exclusion.1

 

Plaintiff sued in the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County, 

Pennsylvania, seeking the $100,000 limit of Nicholas’s UIM coverage.

2

 The 

Defendants removed the case to the Western District of Pennsylvania.3

1 The household exclusion provides, “THERE IS NO COVERAGE FOR AN INSURED

WHO SUSTAINS BODILY INJURY WHILE OCCUPYING A MOTOR VEHICLE 

OWNED BY YOU OR ANY RESIDENT RELATIVE IF IT IS NOT YOUR CAR OR A 

NEWLY ACQUIRED CAR.” App’x at 77.

2 The parties agree that if Plaintiff could recover under Nicholas’s policy, she would be 

entitled to the full $100,000 amount of coverage. 

3 The District Court had jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §§ 1332 and 1446. We have 

jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291. We exercise plenary review over a District 

Court’s grant of summary judgment. Ellis v. Westinghouse Elec. Co., LLC, 11 F.4th 221, 

229 (3d Cir. 2021). Because we are exercising diversity jurisdiction, we apply 
4

II.

Because Plaintiff has already recovered the applicable limit of UIM 

coverage under her policy, the question is whether she can “stack” her son’s UIM 

policy on top of her own recovery. The District Court correctly determined that 

the Pennsylvania Supreme Court answered this question in Craley v. State Farm 

Fire & Casualty Company, 895 A.2d 530 (Pa. 2006). In Craley, Jayneann Craley 

was driving with her infant son, Keith Craley, and her mother-in-law, Gloria 

Craley, when their car was hit by a drunk driver. Id. at 533. Jayneann was killed; 

Keith and Gloria were injured. Id. Gloria, as well as Jayneann’s husband, Randall 

Craley, as administrator of Jayneann’s estate and on behalf of Keith, both sought 

and received uninsured motorist (UM) coverage from Jayneann’s auto insurance 

policy—the policy that covered Jayneann’s car and on which she was the named 

insured. Id. The insurer paid the limits of that policy. Id. Randall and Gloria then 

sought UM coverage under Randall’s separate single-vehicle policy. Yet Randall

had executed a waiver of inter-policy stacking coverage prior to the accident. Id.

at 533–34.

The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania concluded that because the parties were 

attempting to collect under Randall’s policy, “[i]t is Randall’s policy and its 

Pennsylvania law to this dispute. See Kruzits v. Okuma Mach. Tool, Inc., 40 F.3d 52, 55 

(3d Cir. 1994); App’x at 179 (selecting Pennsylvania law in a choice-of-law clause).
5

exclusions that are relevant to the legal issues presented in this case.” Id. at 533. 

The Supreme Court held that stacking insurance can be validly waived in singlevehicle policies, and that because Randall had waived the ability to “stack” his 

insurance the claimants could not recover under his policy. Id. at 542.

Here, Plaintiff is trying to recover under Nicholas’s policy. We, therefore,

look to the terms of his policy to determine if Plaintiff may “stack” his coverage on 

top of her own. That attempt fails. The District Court correctly held that State 

Farm Auto was entitled to summary judgment. 

Plaintiff argues that Craley does not govern because, in that case, both of the 

relevant policyholders waived stacking coverage. She points to the fact that she

did not execute a stacking waiver. But the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s 

reasoning was clear. We look only to the policy under which the claimant is trying 

to recover to determine if coverage is available.4

 Id. at 533; see also Donovan v. 

State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 256 A.3d 1145, 1152, 1157–58 (Pa. 2021). As 

such, whether Plaintiff waived coverage is beside the point.

4 Plaintiff argues that Pennsylvania courts routinely look to other policies to determine if 

coverage is available for a claimant. But the cases she relies on, Eichelman v. 

Nationwide Insurance Company, 711 A.2d 1006, 1010 (Pa. 1998) and Erie Insurance 

Exchange v. Mione, 253 A.3d 754, 768 (Pa. Super. 2021), analyze whether the 

application of the household exclusion violated Pennsylvania public policy. Plaintiff 

does not argue that a stacking waiver violates public policy, so these cases do not 

undermine the clear rule set forth in Craley.
6

Plaintiff’s two remaining arguments fare no better. First, she argues that she 

paid for stacking on her policy, so if stacking is not allowed here, she paid an extra 

premium and received no benefit. Yet she could have stacked her own benefits 

had she been injured while driving her son’s car. See Gallagher v. GEICO Indem.

Co., 201 A.3d 131, 137–38 (Pa. 2019) (providing that when a named insured does 

not waive stacking coverage, he can recover under a policy in which he is a named 

insured even if he has already exhausted the policy limits covering the vehicle that 

he was driving at the time of the accident). Plaintiff then argues that if we honor 

the stacking waiver in Nicholas’s policy, we are effectively voiding all of 

Nicholas’s UIM coverage. But Nicholas could receive the benefit of his own UIM 

coverage were he to be injured by an underinsured driver. As such, denying 

stacking here does not deprive either the Plaintiff or her son of the “benefit of the 

bargain”: they both get the insurance coverage they’ve paid for. 

Finally, because it is clear that this case is controlled by Craley, we decline 

Plaintiff’s invitation to certify a question to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. See 

United States v. Defreitas, 29 F.4th 135, 141 (3d Cir. 2022) (“Certifying a question 

where the answer is clear is inappropriate and unnecessary.”).5

5 Because the District Court correctly granted summary judgment due to Nicholas’s 

stacking waiver, we need not reach the parties’ arguments regarding the household 

exclusion.
7

III.

For the reasons stated above, we will affirm the judgment of the District 

Court.