Court Opinion

ID: 9639154
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 16:06:01.636877+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:13.105665
License: Public Domain

SPAETH, President Judge,
dissenting:
I should hold that the Workmen’s Compensation Act does not bar appellee’s liability to pay uninsured motorist benefits.
*36Modesta v. SEPTA, 503 Pa. 437, 469 A.2d 1019 (1983), establishes the employer’s responsibility to provide uninsured motorist coverage. There the Court held that it was of no consequence that the employer was self-insured. Modesta does not, however, control our decision here, for there the claimant was not the driver of the employer’s motor vehicle but a passenger. The question we must decide, therefore, is whether the employer’s responsibility to provide uninsured motorist coverage is for some reason eliminated when the claimant is an employee who was injured while in the course of his employment. Appellee argues, and the trial court held, that the responsibility is indeed eliminated by the provision of the Workmen’s Compensation Act that
[t]he liability of an employer under this act shall be exclusive and in place of all other liability to such em-ployes____ 77 P.S. § 481(a).
I am not persuaded by this argument. Appellee’s responsibility under Modesta to provide uninsured motorist coverage was not a “liability of [appellee as] an employer.” When a carrier, or a self-insured, provides uninsured motorist coverage, it is providing coverage, not for its own liability, but for the liability of someone else, who should have had but did not have his own coverage. 40 P.S. § 2000(a); Estate of Rosato v. Harleysville Mutual Casualty Co., 328 Pa.Super. 278, 476 A.2d 1328 (1984) (Uninsured Motorist Act ensures that innocent victims recover damages they would have received if uninsured tortfeasor had insurance); Provident Washington Insurance Co. v. Rosato, 328 Pa.Super. 290, 476 A.2d 1334 (1984) (same). The bar of the Workmen’s Compensation Act is therefore inapplicable.
Wagner v. National Indemnity Co., 492 Pa. 154, 422 A.2d 1061 (1980), is not to the contrary. There the employee’s claim was not for uninsured motorist benefits but for No-fault benefits. The essence of the No-fault Act is that it eliminated any cause of action by the claimant against the other driver. Brunelli v. Farrelly Bros., 266 Pa.Super. 23, *3728, 402 A.2d 1058, 1060 (1979). Therefore, the responsibility of an employer to provide No-fault coverage was a responsibility to provide coverage for the employer’s own liability. It was on this basis that the Court in Wagner held that the employer’s liability under the No-fault Act as to an employee was barred by the Workmen’s Compensation Act.
I should reverse the order of the trial court and remand the case for arbitration.