Court Opinion

ID: 9702023
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 22:50:17.564222+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:32.483618
License: Public Domain

DISSENTING OPINION BY
BOWES, J.:
¶ 1 I respectfully dissent from the majority’s conclusion that Appellant was not using her mother’s car. Appellant was a passenger in a vehicle being driven by a properly-licensed individual who was legally operating it. In Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co. v. Cummings, 438 Pa.Super. 586, 652 A.2d 1338 (1994), the policy, as in the case at bar, did not define the term “use,” and we specifically held that a passenger who was occupying a car was using it. This decision has irrefutable logic since people who are occupying a vehicle that is purposefully being driven from one point to another, are “using” it, as that term connotes the act or practice of employing something. Belser v. Rockwood Casualty Insurance Co., 791 A.2d 1216 (Pa.Super.2002).
¶ 2 The decisions in Erie Insurance Exchange v. Transamerica Insurance Co., 516 Pa. 574, 533 A.2d 1363 (1987), and Belser, supra, do not compel a different result. In the former case, our Supreme Court concluded that a three-year-old child who inadvertently set a car in motion was not “using” the car. In Belser, we held that a person who was directing a truck with hand motions was not “using” the truck. Both decisions are logical in that in neither case,was the person in question employing the vehicle for its intended purpose.
¶ 3 I cannot agree with the majority’s assessment that “both parties present compelling and reasonable constructions of the term ‘use,’ ” rendering that term ambiguous. Majority opinion at 1273. The issue is whether Appellant was using a car in which she was a passenger and which was being driven by her brother, a licensed driver. As we held-in Cummings, supra, both drivers and passengers “use” cars in the plain and ordinary sense of the word. Appellant was using the car because she was employing it for its intended purpose, transportation.
¶ 4 Furthermore, Appellee did not collect any premiums with respect to the use of the car in question. In light of this fact, I believe that the Supreme Court’s language in Burstein v. Prudential Property and Casualty Insurance Co. 570 Pa. 177, 185, 809 A.2d 204, 208 (2002) (footnote omitted), wherein it upheld the validity of the exclusion under examination, is implicated:
Here, voiding the exclusion would frustrate the public policy concern for the increasing costs of automobile insurance, as the insurer would be compelled to underwrite unknown risks that it has not been compensated to insure. Most significantly, if this Court were to void the exclusion, insureds would be empowered to regularly drive an infinite number of non-owned vehicles, and receive gratis UIM coverage on all of those vehicles if they merely purchase UIM coverage on one owned vehicle. The same would be true even if the insureds never disclose any of the regularly used, non-owned vehicles to the insurers, as is the case here. Consequently, insurers would be forced to increase the cost of insurance, which is precisely what the public policy behind the MVFRL strives to prevent. Such result is untenable.
¶ 5 Instantly, the risk of injury stemmed from the vehicle owned by Appellant’s mother, Tina Yoder, and not a vehicle owned by Appellant’s father, David Lowry. It is unfair to permit the benefits of Mr. Lowry’s insurance policy to follow his daughter without proper compensation to *1279his insurer, Appellee herein. Id. The majority has allowed Ms. Yoder’s vehicle to be added to the obligation of Mr. Lowry’s insurer without compensation. This practice is not permitted under our Supreme Court’s decision in Burstein. Thus, I would affirm.