Opinion ID: 1468588
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: appellee medical protective

Text: Medical Protective's policy, unlike Firemen's, makes no reference to the payment of interest. Rather, it provides that Medical Protective will furnish a defense until all remedies by appeal . . . shall have been exhausted at the Company's cost and without limit as to the amount expended. (Emphasis added.) In connection with the policy limits, the policy states, such amount [the policy limits] being in addition to the cost of the unlimited defense provided.. . . In our opinion, these provisions are, at the least, ambiguous as to interest, and thus must be construed against Medical Protective. See, e.g. Cadwallader v. New Amsterdam Casualty Co., 396 Pa. 582, 152 A.2d 484 (1959). The costs of a full defense may reasonably include interest, which is as much a cost of conducting a defense as court costs, attorneys' fees, filing fees and the like. See 12 P.S. § 781. The language in Medical Protective's policy can reasonably be construed to include interest, and for the reasons stated above with regard to Firemen's obligation to pay interest on the entire verdict, we hold that Medical Protective is obligated to pay interest on the entire verdict. Finally, both Firemen's and Medical Protective's claim that each tendered their policy limits during pre-trial negotiations and therefore cannot be held liable for interest. We find no merit in this argument. Plaintiff's counsel rejected the appellees' offers as not being adequate, and the matter proceeded to trial. Both Firemen's and Medical Protective were obligated, by the terms of the respective insurance policies, to defend any suit against the doctors they insured. Appellees would now have us hold that their attempt to escape any further responsibility for defending their insureds, by offering $10,000 on a claim which the eventual verdict proved was worth much more, constituted a tender. This we refuse to do. Appellees were legally bound to defend their insureds, they lost at trial as well as in the appellate courts, and then tendered an amount in attempted satisfaction of their legal obligations which was less than the full amount each owed contractually. Under these circumstances, appellees cannot be heard to argue that their pre-trial offers to settle constituted a valid legal tender. Englehart v. Cassatt, 305 Pa. 117, 157 A.2d 256 (1931). The order of the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County is reversed and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. PACKEL, J., filed a concurring and dissenting opinion in which O'BRIEN, J., joins.