Court Opinion

ID: 9652434
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 17:23:42.497645+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:51.360656
License: Public Domain

MONTEMURO, Judge,
concurring:
I agree that the decision of the trial court, wherein the court refused to modify or vacate the arbitration award, must be affirmed. However, my reasons for doing so are somewhat different from the reasoning set forth by the Majority of this Court; hence, this Concurring Opinion.
At the time of the 1985 automobile accident, appellant and the Keystone Insurance Company had a negotiated insurance contract which, beginning in 1984, had provided for the following in terms of arbitration:
ARBITRATION:
If we and a covered person do not agree:
1. Whether that person is legally entitled to recover damages from the owner or operator of an uninsured vehicle or underinsured motor vehicle;
or
2. As to the amount of damages: either party may make a written demand for arbitration. Arbitration shall be conducted in accordance with the provisions of the Pennsylvania Uniform Arbitration Act ...
*450The question to be answered in this case is what standard of review should have been employed by the trial court in reviewing the arbitration award. It is clear that the trial court reviewed the award for an error of law. Finding no error of law, the trial court affirmed the award.
Although the majority addresses the first paragraph of the Historical Note accompanying 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 7302 at length, I find this paragraph to be inapplicable under the circumstances of the present case. The agreement to arbitrate at issue here was not made prior to the effective date of the 1980 Arbitration Act. On the contrary, it was formulated four years after this date. The fact that the contracting parties had different negotiated arbitration agreements in the past should not alter our focus from the parties’ agreement as it existed at the date of the accident. The only potentially applicable paragraph of the Historical Note is the second, and, as the majority correctly concludes, this paragraph does not apply because the parties’ arbitration agreement does not specify the 1927 Act. Thus, the broad scope of judicial review employed by the trial court was an erroneous standard of review as this case does not fall within any of the enumerated categories of 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 7302(d)(1).1
Even though the trial court employed an erroneous standard of review, this Court may nevertheless affirm the trial court. I agree with the majority’s finding that none of the circumstances which would have allowed the trial court to vacate or modify the arbitration award are even at issue in the case at bar. See 42 Pa.C.S.A. §§ 7314 and 7315. Thus, *451because the end result reached by the trial court was correct, we need not disturb it.
McEWEN, TAMILIA and JOHNSON, JJ., join.

. I must respectfully disagree with the majority's view that an analysis of part (1) of the historical note is required because, in my view, when the parties executed the arbitration clause in 1984, we must assume they were contracting with knowledge of the law as it existed in 1984. Prior agreements between the parties, presumably made in light of the law at that time, should have no bearing on an interpretation of an arbitration agreement negotiated and entered into four years after the effective date of the 1980 Arbitration Act.
However, I am in full agreement with the majority's conclusions, expressed in footnote 8 of the Majority Opinion, in regard to the Dissenting Opinion by our distinguished colleague, Judge Del Sole, and accordingly I join therein.