Court Opinion

ID: 9634329
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 13:08:54.754946+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:09:00.575460
License: Public Domain

FLAHERTY, Justice,
concurring.
I join the opinion authored by Mr. Justice Larsen, but write separately to emphasize that our decision in Allstate Insurance Co. v. Heffner, 491 Pa. 447, 421 A.2d 629 (1980), holding that the right to work loss benefits under the No-Fault Act is not terminated upon the demise of a victim, emanated from the legislature’s failure, when it could have easily and obviously done so, to have provided any express language in the Act indicating an intent that such benefits should not accrue to a victim’s survivors, and the legislature’s declaration that benefits under the Act are to be liberally construed. Statutory Construction Act, 1 Pa.C. S.A. § 1928(c) (1964-1982 Supp.); No-Fault Act, 40 P.S. § 1009.102(a)(3) (1983 Supp.) (Purposes: “[T]he maximum feasible restoration of all individuals injured and compensation of the economic losses of the survivors of all individuals killed in motor vehicle accidents____”).
Express provisions in the No-fault automobile insurance laws of several other states expressly deny work loss benefits to the survivors of deceased victims, but the Pennsylvania No-Fault Act contains no such provision. Allstate Insurance Co. v. Heffner, 491 Pa. at 457, 421 A.2d at 634. During the more than three years that have elapsed since our decision in Allstate Insurance Co. v. Heffner, the legislature has not enacted a statutory bar to the recovery of work loss benefits by victims’ survivors, and, thus, has not legislatively overridden the interpretation which this Court has accorded the Act.
The availability of work loss benefits to the survivors of a victim is not to be denied merely because the victim was a minor. The number of years the deceased victim would have worked had he survived the accident may readily be determined by reference to actuarial tables and similar *226statistical compilations, and this is not negated by the fact that, as a minor, the victim had not yet entered the working world. Further, the No-Fault Act provides a formula for establishing the probable annual income of persons who have not previously earned income from work. 40 P.S. § 1009.205(c), (d)(C). The allowance of recovery of the future earnings of minors, under the Act, is not inconsistent with traditional principles of tort law which allow minors, who have not yet been employed, to recover damages for lost earning capacity, rather than bar the recovery of such damages as being too speculative. See generally Freeze v. Donegal Mutual Insurance Co., 301 Pa.Super. 344, 355 fn. 10, 447 A.2d 999, 1005 fn. 10 (1982).