Court Opinion

ID: 9706622
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 01:47:50.496396+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:24.028133
License: Public Domain

PAPADAKOS, Justice,
concurring and dissenting.
I agree with the majority that uninsured motorist benefits cannot be reduced by the amount of worker’s compensation benefits received by the Appellee, but I must express *144my disapproval with the majority’s analysis and conclusions with regard to the stacking of insurance policies taken out by a volunteer fire association for the benefit of its members.
While volunteer fire associations have been endowed with various aspects of quasi-governmental immunities and protections because of the important public nature of the services which they provide, I cannot conclude that these volunteer fire associations have been completely metamorphosed into governmental entities or that they have lost their fundamental character as voluntary unincorporated associations.
The fact still remains that volunteers from various communities, out of their sense of public duty, join their efforts and organize fire companies to protect their homes and the homes and property of their kin, neighbors, and fellow citizens. This volunteer effort is undertaken mainly because municipal government is unable to underwrite the costs of such a paid service and government owes a great debt of gratitude to these citizens who have given so much of their time, efforts and blood in the cause of protecting us all.
Under such circumstances, it is not at all unusual that various statutes should have been enacted which have clothed these associations with various protections and immunities for this is the very least that should have been done to lighten the burden placed on these volunteers for their public service.
Whatever type of entity a firefighters association may be styled, it still has no existence separate and apart from that of its members. If the members pledge themselves to the purchase of real estate and secure the purchase with a mortgage, the individual members are personally responsible to see to it that the debt is satisfied. Wortex Mills v. Textile Workers U. of A, 380 Pa. 3, 109 A.2d 815 (1954); Bloom v. Vauclain, 329 Pa. 460, 198 A. 78 (1938). They cannot look to their municipal or state government for help.
*145Similarly, if the individual members seek to protect themselves by obtaining insurance under their association name, that does not change the fact that the insurance is intended to cover the members of the association. Appellee was seriously injured while serving in his capacity as a volunteer firefighter. He and his fellow volunteer firefighters sought to protect themselves against injuries by purchasing a comprehensive policy of insurance. To suggest that the policy was intended for anyone else but the individual members is sophistry.
Unfortunately, the majority, while extending plaudits to firefighters for all their service to the community, in reality offers only empty praise and seizes upon the opportunity to deprive Appellee of the full measure of his damages. Under the majority’s analysis, the association itself would be the Class One insured, but the association never drives the fire trucks and is not the responsible party in case of a law suit — the firefighters are, acting as agents of the municipality. 75 Pa.C.S. § 1756. See also, Brinker v. City of Greensburg, 409 Pa. 110, 185 A.2d 593 (1962). This is precisely why the legislature has extended to these individuals the various immunities and limitations to which the majority alludes. See 42 Pa.C.S. §§ 8332.3, 8501. Purchasing insurance coverage by using the association name is merely a convenient method by which the individual members seek to protect themselves. Since the firefighters themselves pay the premiums with their association funds, and since the firefighters are the association, it is entirely consistent that the members are the named or designated insureds under this policy.
Stacking is appropriate here because as we held in Utica Mutual Insurance Co. v. Contrisciani, 504 Pa. 328, 473 A.2d 1005 (1984), a person has a reasonable expectation that when he pays separate premiums that he has obtained coverage under separate policies and therefore is entitled to benefits under each. Here, all the members maintain a joint association account from which their funds are disbursed, in this case for insurance coverage. As in Utica, *146Appellee had a reasonable expectation that his premium contributions covered all six vehicles owned by the Association and that he would be covered if he was injured driving any of these vehicles and, therefore, that he would be entitled to benefits under each policy.
I would hold that the Appellee is a class one insured and would affirm the opinion and order of the Superior Court.
LARSEN, J., joins this Concurring and Dissenting Opinion.