Court Opinion

ID: 9471328
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 03:29:21.952192+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:42:21.351362
License: Public Domain

ROSENN, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
I agree with the majority that if an insurance policy between Metropolitan Life Insurance Company (Metropolitan) and Glenn Kucera was in force at the time of the latter’s death, Regina Kucera had an independent cause of action under the policy as the beneficiary. Thus, the majority is correct in holding that her cause of action for the face amount of the policy allegedly issued did not arise until the death of the named insured on July 2, 1979. Regina Kucera’s claim, however, cannot survive a motion for summary judgment unless she can raise a material question of fact as to whether a policy was in force. Her claim is based entirely on the allegation that Metropolitan wrongfully terminated Glenn Kucera’s policy. At the time that Regina Kucera brought this suit, any cause of action for wrongful termination of the policy was barred by the statute of limitations. The district court correctly ruled that because there had been no claim brought within the *682limitations period to reinstate the policy, the policy was no longer in force, and therefore Regina Kucera’s claim did not raise a material question of fact. As I believe that the district court properly granted the defendant’s motion for summary judgment, I respectfully disagree with the majority and would affirm.
The predicate for Regina Kucera’s claim arises out of the alleged unilateral termination and recovery of the policy by Metropolitan in 1974 when it discovered that the insured had a heart condition for which he had been hospitalized. The complaint alleges, inter alia, that “the Defendant unilaterally, without justification and without any breach of said contract of insurance by the insured declared the policy to have been ‘not placed’ and/or not properly delivered and/or not in effect as of the date of issuance.” Complaint at ¶ 18. Further, paragraph 19 of the complaint alleges: “The insured at all times, stood ready and willing to pay the premiums required under the subject life insurance policy to the Defendant, but was prevented from doing so by the Defendant’s unilateral and unjustified insistence that the policy was not in effect and the Defendant’s refusal to accept any further premium payments from the insured.”
The foregoing allegations of the complaint essentially charge that the insurer wrongfully terminated or cancelled the policy of insurance that is the basis of plaintiff’s claim. Under those allegations, a cause of action for the breach of contract immediately accrued to the insured, Glenn Kucera, upon the wrongful termination. The statute of limitations as to that cause of action began to run against the insured upon the alleged wrongful breach and did not stop running upon his death. “The statute [of limitations] runs against the right of action, not the holder thereof.” O’Connell v. Chicago Park Dist., 376 Ill. 550, 557, 34 N.E.2d 836, 840 (1941). Whatever cause of action the decedent possessed at the time of his death inured to the benefit of his personal representative and ultimately became barred under Pennsylvania law six years after the alleged breach.1
As I read the district court’s opinion in this case, it granted summary judgment on the ground that the insured’s claim for alleged wrongful breach of the insurance contract was untimely because “the Pennsylvania six-year Statute of Limitations had run on the claim before the complaint was filed.” Kucera v. Metropolitan Life Insurance Co., No. 82-109, slip op. at 1 (W.D.Pa. Dec. 2, 1982). In support of the decision, the district court found certain material facts that it stated did not appear to be in dispute. Application for the policy of insurance was not effective until the first premium was paid. The policy was delivered to the decedent on May 6, 1974, but remained at his office where the decedent was the sales manager for the McKeesport office of Metropolitan. The district court found that the insured was hospitalized for a heart condition on May 15, 1974, and several times thereafter. He retired from employment on disability in early 1975. Although he had planned to pay the premium by payroll deduction, the insured paid the initial premium of $26.50 on June 19, 1974, and contemporaneously filed a form acknowledging his hospitalization. Kucera slip op. at 2-3. The court also found:
On September 4, 1974, Metropolitan, having received the form, notified the McKeesport office that the policy could not be placed and asked that the policy be returned to the home office. It was returned and on September 9, 1974, Defendant refunded the initial premium of $26.50 by check and decedent cashed the check on September 11, 1974.
The decedent was aware that the policy had been returned to his employer prior to September 11, 1974, when he cashed the refund check for $26.50. He made no *683claim .... In her deposition [the plaintiff] related that her husband “had gotten notice that it had been cancelled or it had been refused.”
Kucera, slip op. at 3. The district court found that if there was a breach it occurred on September 9, 1974, at the latest, “when the check for the premium was returned.” Kucera, slip op. at 5.
Thus, as I read the district court’s opinion, the insured’s claim for breach of contract was barred on September 8, 1980. Regina Kucera commenced this action on December 29, 1981. If a promisee may not enforce an agreement, “[i]t would be patently unjust to allow a mere donee beneficiary to enforce it.” Williams v. Paxson Coal Co., 346 Pa. 468, 472, 31 A.2d 69, 71 (1943). See Simmons v. Western Assured Co., 205 F.2d 815, 819 (5th Cir.1953) (the third-party beneficiary of an insurance contract “can acquire no better right to enforce the contract than that held by the contracting parties themselves”); 2 S. Williston, A Treatise on the Law of Contracts, § 364A (3d ed.1959).
The district court found that the insured’s claim for the wrongful termination of the contract of insurance had been barred by the Pennsylvania statute of limitations prior to the filing of the plaintiff’s complaint. The plaintiff’s claim could not rise any higher than that of the insured, and therefore she could not successfully demonstrate wrongful termination.
Although the district court’s opinion may not be a model of clarity and might have explained the effect of the insured’s time-barred claim upon the plaintiff’s cause of action, the court nonetheless properly entered summary judgment for the defendant. I would therefore affirm the judgment of the district court.

. Had the plaintiff been designated as the personal representative of the insured, she could have brought the suit within the remaining statutory period following the insured’s death, and if she were not designated, she, as beneficiary under the alleged policy, could have compelled the personal representative to bring the appropriate action.