Court Opinion

ID: 9634330
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 13:08:54.758489+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:09:00.576888
License: Public Domain

ROBERTS, Chief Justice,
dissenting.
The majority compounds the error of Allstate Insurance Co. v. Heffner, 491 Pa. 447, 421 A.2d 629 (1980), by expanding the class of persons entitled to “work loss” benefits under the No-Fault Act to include not only “survivors” of deceased victims, but also the representatives of the estates of deceased victims. I dissent, would overrule Heffner, and would reverse the order of the Superior Court, for although I joined in this Court’s ruling in Heffner, I am now convinced that work-loss benefits were intended by the Legislature to be available only to a victim of an automobile accident who has not died as a result of it.
That work-loss benefits were legislatively designed to constitute only a form of disability income is evident from the two sections of the No-Fault Act relating to the payment of “work loss.” Section 205, 40 P.S. § 1009.205, which sets forth the means by which work loss is to be computed, provides three different means for computing work loss, one for the case of a “regularly employed” victim of an automobile accident, one for a “seasonally employed” victim, and one for a victim who is “not employed.” In the case of a “regularly employed” victim, the victim’s “probable weekly income,” determined by dividing “probable annual income” by fifty-two, is multiplied by “the *227number of work weeks, or fraction thereof, the victim sustains loss of income during the accrual period.” 40 P.S. § 1009.205(a)(2). In the case of a “seasonally employed” victim, probable weekly income, determined by dividing probable annual income by “the number of weeks he normally works,” is multiplied by “the number of work weeks, or fraction thereof, the victim was unable to perform and would have performed work during the accrual period but for the injury.” 40 P.S. § 1009.205(b)(2). In the case of a “not employed” victim, probable weekly income, determined in the same manner as in the case of a regularly employed victim, is multiplied by “the number of work weeks, or fraction thereof, if any, the victim would reasonably have been expected to realize income during the accrual period.” 40 P.S. § 1009.205(c)(2). Section 106(a)(1) of the Act provides that “No-fault benefits are payable monthly as loss accrues. Loss accrues not when injury occurs, but as allowable expense, work loss, replacement services loss, or survivor’s loss is sustained.” 40 P.S. § 1009.106(a)(1).
The evident intent of section 205 is to supply a person disabled by an automobile accident with a flow of income which as nearly as possible approximates the person’s income before the disabling accident: Each type of victim is to receive work-loss benefits based on two factors, the victim’s probable earnings and the amount of work which likely would have been performed during the “accrual period” if not for the injury. As is seen from a reading of section 106(a)(1), which provides for the monthly payment of benefits “as loss accrues,” the Legislature further intended to tailor the schedule of the payment of work-loss benefits to the amount of work loss actually suffered by the victim, rather than to require that the duration of the “accrual period” be estimated at the time of injury.
These aims of the Legislature in providing work-loss benefits are ignored by Heffner and today’s decision, both of which view the death of a person involved in an automobile accident as having no effect on a work-loss claim. *228Whereas under the terms of the No-Fault Act work-loss benefits are to be computed according to the regularity of the victim’s employment in a given year and awarded “as loss accrues,” under Heffner and today’s decision work-loss benefits are to be awarded automatically, almost always in the amount of $15,000, the statutory ceiling on work-loss benefits. See § 202(b)(2), 40 P.S. § 1009.202(b)(2).
The strain placed on the No-Fault Act by Heffner and today’s decision is best illustrated by the present record, on which work-loss benefits may be recovered by the estate of a decedent who was eleven years old at the time of the automobile accident, and who did not have a history of employment. If decedent had survived the accident, he would have had to show, pursuant to subsection (c)(2) of section 205, that there were work weeks during which he “would reasonably have been expected to realize income during the accrual period.” 40 P.S. § 1009.205(c)(2). Because of decedent’s age at the time of the accident, such a showing could not realistically have been made until several years after the accident, as until then decedent would not likely have entered the labor market. Under Heffner and today’s decision, decedent’s estate automatically qualifies for decedent’s work-loss benefits at the instant that the accident occurs, on the theory that decedent would have become employed at some point in the future, and would have worked long enough to have earned $15,000. Yet under the mandate of section 106(a)(1) of the Act, the work-loss benefits may not be paid to decedent’s estate until the “loss accrues,” a situation which would not occur until decedent’s hypothetical entry into the labor market, several years after the actual injury.
Underlying the determinations in Freeze and in Heffner is the erroneous premise that if the estate of a deceased victim is not permitted to recover work-loss benefits, then the estate will be barred from bringing a survival action against a third-party tortfeasor for loss of the deceased’s earning capacity. Although section 301(a) of the Act pro*229vides for the abolition of tort liability arising from automobile accidents, section 301(a)(4) provides that
“[a] person remains liable for loss which is not compensated because of any limitation in accordance with section 202(a), (b), (c) or (d) of this act.”
40 P.S. § 1009.301(a)(4). When the provisions of the No-Fault Act relating to work-loss benefits, including section 202(a), are properly read, it is clear that the victim’s death is as much a “limitation” on the payment of work-loss benefits as the statutory ceiling of $15,000 on work-loss payments specifically contained in section 202(a).*
The proper recourse for a decedent’s estate is not the filing of a claim against a No-Fault insurer for work-loss benefits, but rather the institution of a traditional survival action for economic damages, such as those brought by the estates in McClinton v. White, 497 Pa. 610, 444 A.2d 85 (1982). Accordingly, the order of the Superior Court should be reversed, and the order of the Court of Common Pleas of York County sustaining the preliminary objections of appellant Donegal Mutual Insurance Company reinstated.
HUTCHINSON, J., joins in this dissenting opinion.

 Indeed, if section 301(a)(4) were to be read otherwise, the estate of a wage-earning accident victim with years of working life ahead of him who survives an accident long enough to receive $14,000 in benefits, but not long enough to receive the $15,000 statutory maximum, would be unable to bring a survival action, because the lack of full compensation for loss would not be attributable to the $15,000 ceiling on benefits. Clearly it should be assumed that the Legislature did not intend such an unreasonable result. See 1 Pa.C.S. § 1922(1).