Court Opinion

ID: 9706721
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 01:50:25.427767+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:41:29.172458
License: Public Domain

McEWEN, Judge,
concurring.
I concur in the result reached by the majority since this panel is bound by the panel decisions in Boyle v. Erie Insurance Company, 441 Pa.Super. 103, 656 A.2d 941 (1995), allo. denied, 542 Pa. 655, 668 A.2d 1120 (1995); Chambers v. Aetna Casualty & Surety Co., 442 Pa.Super. 155, 658 A.2d 1346 (1995), allo. denied, 543 Pa. 707, 672 A.2d 303 (1996); and *512Kelly v. State Farm Insurance Company, 447 Pa.Super. 214, 668 A.2d 1154 (1995), and write only to express a concern.
Recent history has witnessed the demise of the No Fault Act at the pens of judicial revision of the express provisions of insurance policies. Our legislature responded by enactment in 1984, of the Pennsylvania MVFRL. However, judicial interpretation of the MVFRL triggered further legislative attention and enactment in 1990, of the Act 6 amendments to the MVFRL.
This Court in Boyle was called upon to interpret the provisions of a policy issued in conformity with the MVFRL prior to the enactment of Act 6. However, subsequent decisions of this Court — which, unlike Boyle, involved policies issued after the effective date of the Act 6 amendments — have effectively rewritten the underinsured motorist coverage provisions of every policy of insurance issued in Pennsylvania.
One may not gainsay that, in ruling upon issues of coverage, this Court is required to give effect to the clear and unambiguous language of the contract of insurance, and may disregard those express provisions only where they are found to be void as violative of a positive rule of statutory or decisional law. Hall v. Amica Mutual Insurance Co., 538 Pa. 337, 648 A.2d 755 (1994). In Boyle v. Erie Insurance Company, supra, our illustrious colleague of revered memory, Judge Donald E. Wieand, in interpreting a contract of insurance issued in conformity with the pre-Act 6 version of the MVFRL, held that the express requirement in the policy issued to the Boyles — namely, that the limits of all applicable bodily injury liability policies be exhausted prior to the arbitration of any claim for underinsured motorist coverage — was void as contrary to public policy where underinsured motorist coverage was required by law and the insured had received an offer to settle of $15,000.00 from one tortfeasor whose total coverage was $15,000.00 and an offer of $150,000.00 from the other tortfeasor whose liability coverage was $300,000.00.
This Court subsequently examined the issue of exhaustion of liability coverages in Chambers v. Aetna Casualty & Surety *513Co., supra, a post-Act 6 case, without, however, analyzing the effect of the Act 6 amendments which had made underinsured motorist coverage voluntary rather than mandatory. Our court there proceeded to hold that the offer of a structured settlement with a total payout of $110,545.00 and a present value of $90,000.00 was sufficient to trigger the rule in Boyle, a pre-Act 6 decision, where the total liability coverage available was $100,000.00.
The liability coverage exhaustion issue was then visited in Kelly v. State Farm Insurance Company, supra, where the claim for underinsured motorist benefits was predicated on the death of the named-insured’s 11-year-old daughter. Even though the carrier for the tortfeasor made an offer to pay but 25% of its liability limit of $50,000.00, this Court held that the offer was sufficient to compel arbitration of the underinsured claim. Anomalously enough, however, the Kelly court noted that “an exhaustion clause must be interpreted to provide protection to an insurance company against a demand by its insured to fill the ‘gap’ after a weak claim has been settled for an unreasonably small amount.” Kelly v. State Farm Insurance Company, supra at 221, 668 A.2d at 1157, quoting Boyle v. Erie Insurance Company, supra at 108, 656 A.2d at 943. In light of this holding of Kelly, compelling arbitration of an underinsured motorist claim arising under a policy issued after the effective date of Act 6, where the tortfeasor offered only 25% of his available coverage, I am unable to discern when, if ever, an insurer can properly invoke its contractual right to require exhaustion of an applicable liability policy. Thus, it would appear that our Court again has revisionist pen in hand, this time to alter the MVFRL to preclude any policy issued in conformity therewith from containing an exhaustion clause. Thus it is that I concur in the result.