Month: May 2017

Judge Rules IME Policy Provision May Violate Pa. Motor Vehicle Law

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SCRANTON, May 15  — A Pennsylvania federal judge  dismissed  bad faith and other claims against Allstate Insurance Co.  in a class action, but permitted claims brought under the Pennsylvania Motor Vehicle Financial Responsibility Law (MVFRL)  by a woman injured in a car accident.

In Sayles v. Allstate Insurance Co., No. 16-1534, M.D. Pa., 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 71760),  Sayles filed suit after the company denied her claim for medical benefits for injuries she sustained following an automobile accident.  According to Sayles, Allstate denied her claim  because she did not first obtain a physical examination, as required in the insuring agreement.  The suit, originally filed against Allstate in Pike County,  was removed to federal Court.

Sayles claimed Allstate’s policy requirement of a mandatory medical examination violated provisions of the MVFRL which permit medical examinations by court order.  She also advanced claims under the Unfair Trade Practices and Consumer Protection Law, and for bad faith under 42 Pa,C.S.A. section 8371.  Sayles also sought class certification for Allstate policyholders denied medical benefits where Allstate had not first obtained a court-ordered physical examination

Allstate moved to dismiss all claims relating to its policy’s examination requirement, which permits it to require  insureds to undergo an independent medical examination (IME) by a physician of Allstate’s choosing as a condition precedent to payment of medical expenses.  Allstate claimed the provision was enforceable notwithstanding Section 1796 of the MVFRL, because Section 1796 relating to court-ordered IME’s  was permissive in nature, not mandatory.

U.S. Middle District Judge Richard Caputo granted the motion to dismiss as to the bad faith claims, but denied the motion regarding Sayles’ claims that the policy provision requiring IME’s violated the MVFRL:

“[T]he Court predicts that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court would find Allstate’s examination requirement, as alleged, in conflict with § 1796 of the MVFRL and thus void as against public policy.  The examination requirement conflicts with the plain language of the statute and is inconsistent with the twin purposes of § 1796.  Moreover, the Court is not persuaded by the ‘implication’ of the Superior Court’s decision in Fleming and, consequently, departs from the conclusion reached by the district court in Williams.  Instead, the Court finds it appropriate to rely on the opinion of the district court in Scott, as well as the opinions of Judge [R. Stanton] Wettick [Jr.] in Erie and Hoch.  Additionally, the Court finds the analogous case law from the Commonwealth of Kentucky addressing a similar statutory provision under similar factual circumstances compelling.  Accordingly, in light of the above discussion, Allstate’s Motion to Dismiss will be denied with respect to Counts I and II of Sayles’s Complaint.”

In dismissing both statutory and common law bad faith claims against Allstate, Judge Caputo recognized that the law regarding mandatory IME’s in Pennsylvania was not fully settled, and that Allstate was not unreasonable in relying on some lower court precedent which had approved of similar mandatory examination provisions.  He wrote, therefore:

“It was reasonable for Allstate to rely on [precedent] which supported Allstate’s decision to deny Sayles’s medical benefits based on her failure to submit to an IME per the terms of the Policy.  Because Sayles’s bad faith claim is predicated entirely on the examination requirement, the Court finds that the Complaint alleges only that Allstate made a ‘reasonable legal conclusion based on an area of the law that is uncertain or in flux.’ . . .  Accordingly, the Court will grant Allstate’s Motion to Dismiss with respect to Count IV of Sayles’s Complaint.”

The judge also dismissed Sayles’ claims for violation of the Pennsylvania Unfair Trade Practices and Consumer Protection Law, unjust enrichment and intentional misrepresentation.

Sayles v. Allstate, No. 16-1534, M.D. Pa., 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 71760) (Caputo, J.)

 

Pa. Judge: Bad Faith Case Severed, Jury To Hear Common Law Bad Faith Claims

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Pennsylvania’s  Westmoreland County Court of Common Pleas has denied a motion to stay of discovery in a  bad faith case pending completion of a UIM case, but has also ordered severance of trial of the bad faith claims under which common law bad faith claims will be tried by a jury, and statutory bad faith claims will be tried by the judge.

In Madeja v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Ins. Co., No. 5493 of 2016 (C.P. Westmoreland Co. April 11, 2017 Scherer, J.), the plaintiffs advanced both common law bad faith claims and statutory bad faith claims,  The trial court ordered those claims severed from the underlying UIM claim.  In a bit of a quirk, however, the court ruled that depending on the verdict returned on the UIM claim,  the common law bad faith claims would be heard with the same jury that determined the UIM claim while the court would hear the statutory bad faith claim on a non-jury basis.

A copy of the trial court order can be found here.

Editor’s note:  The trial court order in this case points out the somewhat unique nature of bad faith law in Pennsylvania — it is a two-headed creature with both a common law component and a statutory law component.  In this writer’s experience, trials of both statutory and common law bad faith claims is not the norm — statutory bad faith claims are usually singly tried to the bench in state court.  The court order in question sets up for a potentially unruly and cumbersome bad faith trail, given the likelihood of overlapping evidence presented on the common law and statutory bad faith claims.   The Court might streamline the process by simply taking evidence in a single bad faith proceeding, and then letting the jury render a verdict on the common law claims, with the Court issuing a decision on the statutory bad faith claims. 

The ruling could serve as an incentive to the plaintiffs’ bar to not only plead common law bad faith claims, but seek trial of those claims in an effort to work around what has traditionally been the province of the trial judge in bad faith cases. 

 

 

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