Court Opinion

ID: 9762675
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 02:28:43.425494+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:36.564933
License: Public Domain

JOHNSON, Judge,
dissenting:
Because I believe that the majority confuses, and attempts to equate, “public policy” with “legislative intent”, I must dissent.
I agree with the majority that in this case, the provisions of the insurance contract under review are clear and unam*603biguous. I disagree that we, as an intermediate appellate court, are free to declare the contract provisions void upon a finding that they are “repugnant to the policy underlying the [Motor Vehicle Financial Responsibility Law] MVFRL.”
Public policy should be taken to mean a principle under which freedom of contract or private dealings is restricted by law for the good of the community. Thus, a clause in an insurance policy might be found to be against public policy if its implementation might have a mischievous tendency, so as to be injurious to the interests of the state, apart from illegality or immorality. See Black’s Law Dictionary 1041 (5th ed. 1979).
Legislative intent, however, refers to the state of mind or mental attitude present within the legislature at the point in time when a specific act secures passage. It should be looked to only when we are called upon to construe a statute which is ambiguous or inconsistent.
I do not read the majority opinion to suggest that a clause prohibiting stacking of underinsurance coverage within a single policy is in any way mischievous or injurious to the interests of the state. Indeed, it could not, since we have found such clauses to be entirely legal in the past. Votedian v. General Accident Fire and Life Assurance Corporation, 330 Pa.Super. 13, 478 A.2d 1324 (1984); Vogel v. National Grange Mutual Insurance Company, 332 Pa.Super. 384, 481 A.2d 668 (1984). See also, Haegele v. Pa. General Insurance Company, 330 Pa.Super. 481, 479 A.2d 1005 (1984).
Rather, the majority, seemingly, has examined the arguments presented by the parties and considered various sections of the MVFRL in order to determine what the legislature might have done, if they had considered stacking in direct relation to underinsurance coverage. I find this approach to be nothing more than our court attempting to engage in the legislative process. I decline to join in such an escapade.
I do not find the Motor Vehicle Financial Responsibility Law to be either ambiguous or inconsistent on the issue presented in this appeal. On the contrary, the legislature *604has quite clearly spelled out an insured’s right to select a maximum amount of underinsurance coverage desired beyond the statutorily required minimum. 75 Pa.C.S. § 1734. The minimum limit for bodily injury financial responsibility is $15,000 because of injury to one person in any one accident and $30,000 because of injury to two or more persons in any one accident. 75 Pa.C.S. § 1702. In the case before us, the insured secured $35,000 of underinsured motorist coverage, while securing $100,000 of bodily injury liability coverage. This, to me, is a clear case of the insured exercising his rights under Subchapter C of the MVFRL, §§ 1731 and 1734.
Even if I were to accept the majority’s premise that one may look to the intention of the legislature in order to fill in the interstices of the act where no ambiguity or inconsistency exists, I would conclude that there is no indication of policy within the MVFRL clear enough to void a plain, unambiguous provision in an insurance contract precluding stacking of underinsurance benefits. Cf. Antanovich v. Allstate Insurance Company, 320 Pa.Super. 322, 467 A.2d 345 (1983), aff'd, 507 Pa. 68, 488 A.2d 571 (1985).
I would take issue with this court’s attempt to use Harleysville Mutual Casualty Co. v. Blumling, 429 Pa. 389, 241 A.2d 112 (1968) as the springboard for its analysis based on legislative intent. In Blumling, our supreme court was faced with an insured who held two distinct policies of insurance, each containing uninsured motorist coverage. In ruling that the “other insurance” clause was invalid, the court was not required to examine, compare and contrast the various clauses of the Uninsured Motorist Act,1 but could rest on the fact that the Act mandated coverage. Were the “other insurance” clauses in both policies to be given effect, an insured could have ended up with no coverage, a result that clearly would have offended the public policy as expressed in the Act. Moreover, the “other insurance” clause was being used to limit the carrier’s liability in the face of a statute mandating a fixed amount of coverage.
*605I am puzzled by the majority’s assertion, without citation to authority, that the failure of the legislature to include an express limitation regarding stacking in Subchapter C of the MVFRL “lends credence” to the insured’s contention that the legislature (1) intended the stacking of uninsured benefits to continue and, by joining uninsured and underinsured benefits within the same subchapter, (2) intended to permit the stacking of underinsured benefits. I find this to be nothing more than mere speculation, in no way supported by any rules of statutory construction with which I am familiar.
The majority concludes that the limitation on stacking is void as repugnant to and in derogation of the purpose and policy of the MVFRL. If that purpose and policy as found by the majority is nothing more than the provision of a “liberal compensatory scheme,” I find such a policy not clear enough to void the plain, unambiguous provision in the insurance contract before us.
There is nothing to suggest that our past attempts to assist the legislature in amending the now-defunct No-fault Act proved beneficial to the Commonwealth. I would prefer to leave the amendment of the MVFRL in the capable hands of our representatives in Harrisburg. Hence this dissent.

. Act of August 14, 1963, P.L. 909; 40 P.S. § 2000.