Court Opinion

ID: 9709744
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 03:53:52.523525+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:51.184967
License: Public Domain

HUTCHINSON, Justice,
concurring.
I concur in the result. This Court construed Section 103 of the Pennsylvania No-Fault Motor Vehicle Insurance Act,1 in Midboe v. State Farm Mutual Auto Insurance Co., 495 *295Pa. 348, 433 A.2d 1342 (1981) (“Midboe ”), a case involving factual circumstances similar to those present in the case hereunder consideration. I agree with Former Chief Justice O’Brien’s construction of Section 103 set forth in an opinion in support of affirmance in Midboe in which Mr. Justice, now Chief Justice, Roberts and Mr. Justice Flaherty joined. There Justice O’Brien determined that the legislature intended the phrase “dependent upon the deceased for support” to modify all the antecedents contained in subsection (B).
Justice O’Brien correctly observed that rules of statutory construction are inapplicable where the intent of the legislature is clear from the language of the provision in question read in the context of the entire statutory scheme. Accordingly, in declining to apply the last antecedent rule, he noted that:
“The [last antecedent] rule is but another aid to discovery of intent or meaning, however, and not an inflexible and uniformly binding rule. Where the sense of the entire act requires that a qualifying word or phrase apply to several preceding or even succeeding sections, the word or phrase will not be restricted to its immediate antecedent.... When several words are followed by a [modifying phrase], which is applicable as much to the first and other words as to the last, the natural construction of the language demands that the [modifying phrase] be read as applicable to all.”
Id., 495 Pa. at 356-57, 433 A.2d at 1347 (quoting Commonwealth v. Rosenbloom Finance Corp., 457 Pa. 496, 500, 325 A.2d 907, 909 (1974)). I agree with then Chief Justice O’Brien’s conclusion that had the legislature intended to require only a “relative” to prove dependency on the deceased, it would have included “child, parent, brother or sister” with “spouse” in subsection (A). See id.
I further agree with then Chief Justice O’Brien that our construction of Section 103 comports with policy considerations underpinning the No-Fault Act. Specifically, as he noted in Midboe:
*296The purpose of the No-Fault Act, as is the purpose of compensating any accident victim even if not in a No-Fault context is just that, i.e., to compensate the victim for the injury suffered. The No-Fault Act was never meant to provide windfalls to accident victims or the survivors of deceased victims. Thus, the Act as drafted presumes a spouse to be dependent on the deceased. Any other relative may still recover under No-Fault if that person is able to establish dependency on the deceased. Further, while the Act itself sets limits on the amount of recovery, see 40 P.S. § 1009.202 (Supp. 1980-81), the Act allows recovery in excess of those limits under traditional tort theories of liability. 40 P.S. § 1009.301 (Supp.1980-81); Allstate Insurance Co. v. Heffner, 491 Pa. 447, 421 A.2d 629 (1980). (Survivors of a deceased victim may recover “work loss” benefits in excess of the Act’s $15,-000 limitation on traditional tort theory).
Id., 495 Pa. at 358, 433 A.2d at 1348.
For the foregoing reasons, I concur in the result.

. Act of July 19, 1974, P.L. 489, No. 176, Art. 1, 40 P.S. § 1009.103.