Court Opinion

ID: 9754491
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 20:02:38.028345+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:27:54.124198
License: Public Domain

McEWEN, Judge,
concurring:
The ruling that uninsured motorist benefits under a corporate fleet policy may not be stacked is so sound as to be beyond dispute and I hasten to join in both the rationale and conclusion upon that issue.
I am now also persuaded that an employee who receives Workmen’s Compensation benefits is not precluded from receiving uninsured motorist benefits under his employer’s policy, a decision which overrules Lewis v. School District of Philadelphia, 347 Pa.Super. 32, 500 A.2d 141 (1985) and Vann v. The School District of Philadelphia, 348 Pa.Super. 383, 502 A.2d 260 (1985). But while angels would fear *543to express a rationale which varies from one in which all of the other members of this Court en banc have joined, I would rely for that conclusion upon the reasoning set forth in the tersely cogent dissent of our esteemed former President Judge Edmund B. Spaeth, Jr. in Lewis v. School District of Philadelphia, supra, 347 Pa.Super. 32 at 35, 500 A.2d 141 at 143, which, in essence, states:
The exclusivity provision of the Workmen’s Compensation Act is restricted to the “liability of an employer”.
When a carrier provides uninsured motorist coverage to an employer, it is providing coverage not for the liability of the employer but for the liability of someone else who should have had but did not have his own coverage. Thus, uninsured motorist coverage is not coverage for the “liability of an employer”.
Therefore, an employee is not precluded from receiving uninsured motorist benefits under the employer’s policy.
That reasoning is as compelling as it is succinct and, thus it is, that I join in this conclusion of the majority.