Court Opinion

ID: 9481688
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 08:28:37.714286+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:48:30.817813
License: Public Domain

MANSMANN, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
Because I agree that the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania would hold that enforcement of the Household Exclusion Clause in this case would not conflict with Pennsylvania’s public policy as expressed in the Motor Vehicle Financial Responsibility Law, 75 Pa.Cons.Stat.Ann. §§ 1701 et seq. (the “Act”), I concur in the result reached by the majority. I write separately to place greater emphasis on the most recent Pennsylvania en banc appellate decision on a similar conflict — the Pennsylvania Superior Court's decision in Wolgemuth v. Harleysville Mutual Ins. Co., 370 Pa.Super. 51, 535 A.2d 1145 (1988).1 Although the policy exclusion there did not involve the same family vehicle exclusion that is at issue here, the Wolgemuth opinion provides a valuable analytical framework in which to address the Household Exclusion Clause in light of public policy considerations.
Wolgemuth involved a guest passenger who was killed in a single vehicle accident. Because the guest passenger was a person covered under the terms of the motor vehicle insurance policy applicable to the host vehicle, Harleysville Mutual Insurance Company paid the full amount of the liability coverage to the administrator of the decedent’s estate. Harleysville then denied the administrator’s claim for underinsu-rance benefits. The express terms of the policy precluded recovery of underinsured motorist benefits under such circumstances because the involved vehicle could not be an “underinsured motor vehicle”, as that term was defined in the policy. The estate administra,tor argued that such an exclusion violated public policy and was contrary to the express provisions and intent of the Act.
The Superior Court first concluded that the policy exclusion did not violate the public policy of Pennsylvania because the Act “contains no indication of policy clear enough to void a plain, unambiguous provision in an insurance contract_” Wolgemuth, 535 A.2d at 1150 (quoting Antanovich v. Allstate Insurance Co., 507 Pa. 68, 76, 488 A.2d 571, 575 (1985)). The Court *591also determined that the exclusion did not violate the express provisions or the purpose of the Act. In reaching this conclusion, the Court sought to “ascertain and effectuate the intention of the General Assembly.” 1 Pa.Cons.Stat.Ann. § 1921(a), by examining the legislative history of the Act. From the legislative history, the Court determined that the two major considerations behind the repeal of the No-fault Motor Vehicle Insurance Act (which antedated the Act) were “the rapidly escalating cost of coverage under the No-fault Act and the increasingly high numbers of uninsured motorists.” Wolgemuth, 535 A.2d at 1151. Additionally, pursuant to section 1921 of the Statutory Construction Act, the Court considered the “consequences of [its] particular interpretation.” 1 Pa.Cons.Stat.Ann. § 1921(c)(6). As a result, the Court chose not to declare the exclusion void since to do so would cause an increase in the cost of mandatory under-insured motorist coverage.
By applying the factors considered in Wolgemuth to the policy exemption before this court, I would reach a similar result. First, the Act does not contain an indication of policy clear enough to void a plain, unambiguous provision in an insurance contract. The Household Exclusion Clause is plain and unambiguous. Second, enforcement of the policy exclusion is consonant with the two major considerations behind the repeal of the No-fault Act. The exclusion serves to keep insurance costs down because the insurer can calculate the extent of its risk as limited to those family vehicles that it has insured, rather than to an indeterminate number of the insured’s family’s vehicles. The exclusion also encourages parties to insure all of their vehicles or to risk exclusion from underinsu-rance benefits. Third, the consequences of declaring the exclusion void are obvious. A party owning several vehicles would be encouraged to insure only one of them since he would be fully protected for uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage for the remaining vehicles without paying extra premiums. Certainly, such a consequence militates against an interpretation voiding the policy exclusion.
Consequently, because Wolgemuth is a recent Pennsylvania Superior Court en banc decision and provides an analysis which, when applied, supports our decision not to void the Household Exclusion Clause, I would place great weight on the Wolgemuth decision.

. In the absence of an opinion by a state’s highest appellate court, we must give deference to a decision of the state's intermediate appellate court unless there are indications that the highest state court would rule otherwise. Prudential Property and Casualty Ins. Co. v. Pendleton, 858 F.2d 930, 935 (3d Cir.1988).