Habecker v. Nationwide Ins. Co.
| Decision Date | 14 May 1982 |
| Citation | 299 Pa.Super. 463,445 A.2d 1222 |
| Parties | Christine T. HABECKER and Harry L. Habecker, her husband, Appellants, v. NATIONWIDE INSURANCE COMPANY, Appellee. |
| Court | Pennsylvania Superior Court |
Argued Sept. 22, 1981.
Lee C. Swartz, Harrisburg, for appellants.
Mary Jane Forbes, Harrisburg, for appellee.
Before BROSKY, McEWEN and BECK, JJ.
This appeal from a motion granting summary judgment to the insurer appellee presents an issue of statutory construction involving the time span over which an insurer will be liable for "replacement services" payments provided under Section 202(c) of the Pennsylvania No-Fault Motor Vehicle Insurance Act, 40 P.S. § 1009.202(c).
Again, this court is asked to interpret ambiguous language in the No-Fault Act. "Replacement services loss" is defined as "expenses reasonably incurred in obtaining ordinary and necessary services in lieu of those the victim would have performed, not for income, but for the benefit of himself or his family if he had not been injured." 40 P.S. § 1009.103. Section 202(c) provides that "[r]eplacement services loss ... shall be provided up to a daily maximum of twenty-five dollars ($25) for an aggregate period of one year." [1]
The appellant insured, Christine T. Habacker, contends that she suffered serious injury in an automobile accident. As a result of her injury, she was unable to perform her usual housework. She hired a housekeeper initially on a daily basis and then for one or two days each week. The insurer reimbursed her for housekeeping expenses incurred during the twelve months after her accident. However, her injuries were long lasting. Even after a year from the date of the accident, she continued to need replacement services. The insurer, however, refused her requests for further reimbursements.
The trial court granted summary judgment to the insurer finding that the statute required replacement services payments for only one calendar year from the date of the accident. The appellant contends that under the No-Fault Act, she is entitled to reimbursement for three hundred sixty-five days of such services, even when these replacement services days occur more than a year after her injuries. We agree with the appellant and accordingly reverse.
This case requires this Court to construe for the first time the meaning of the phrase "daily maximum of twenty-five dollars ($25) for an aggregate period of one year." (emphasis added). If the word "aggregate" was not included in the statutory language, it would be clear that reimbursement would be limited to a single one year stretch of time. However, the inclusion of the word "aggregate" raises an ambiguity as to what the phrase means and what the Legislature intended.
Under the Statutory Construction Act of 1972, we are required to construe statutory words and phrases "according to rules of grammar and according to their common or approved usage." 1 Pa.C.S.A. § 1903; Commonwealth v Hill, 481 Pa. 37, 391 A.2d 1303 (1978). The term "aggregate," used as an adjective, means "formed by a collection of units or particles into a body, mass, or amount..." Webster's Third New International Dictionary, 41. See Estate of J. Henry Miller Deceased, 110 Pa.Super. 384, 386; 168 A. 807 (1933). This word, therefore, can only modify a noun denoting something made up of two or more parts. In this statute "aggregate" modifies "period," which is also modified by the prepositional phrase "of one year." Appellee contends that the phrase "period of one year" means a single, continuous stretch of time of 365 days' duration. This contention on its face is foreclosed by the Legislature's use of the term "aggregate," which requires the relevant period to be a collection of two or more specific quantities of time.
If the phrase "period of one year" is interpreted to mean such a single continuous stretch of time, the word "aggregate" would have no discernable meaning. Appellee in effect asks the Court to interpret the words "aggregate period of one year" to read simply "period of one year." If the legislators had meant that insureds should be eligible for replacement services for a single one year stretch of time, they could have simply stated that the insured would be eligible for replacement services for a period of one year. Appellee implicitly recognizes this weakness in his argument when he contends that the word "aggregate" as used here serves solely to "emphasize that payments are payable only to the extent they are incurred within one year." (Appellee's Brief, p. 8.) Such an interpretation of "aggregate" is inconsistent with accepted definitions of that word.
In the alternative, appellee argues that the Court should construe the statutory language so that the word "aggregate" modifies the phrase "[r]eplacement services loss" instead of the phrase "period of one year." [2] Since the word "aggregate," as positioned in Section 202(c), clearly does not modify "[r]eplacement services loss," we must reject that suggestion. Thus, appellee's suggestions either do violence to the plain meaning of the adjective "aggregate," or to the simple grammatical positioning of the word "aggregate" in the statutory phrase at issue.
Other portions of the Statutory Construction Act also support our view that the statute should be read, as appellants suggest, to mean that replacement services benefits should be available to her for an aggregate period of 365 days.
First, where a statute is unclear, as here, we are bound to consider legislative purpose. 1 Pa.C.S.A. §§ 1921(a), 1921(b); Commonwealth v. Hess, 270 Pa.Super. 501, 411 A.2d 830 (1980).
One of the stated purposes of the No-Fault Act was to achieve the "maximum feasible restoration of all individuals injured in motor vehicle accidents on Commonwealth highways....," and to provide a "low-cost, comprehensive, and fair system of compensating and restoring motor vehicle accident victims ... so that every victim has the opportunity to: (A) receive prompt and comprehensive professional treatment; and (B) be rehabilitated to the point where he can return as a useful member of society and a self-respecting and self-supporting citizen." 40 P.S. §§ 1009.102(a)(3), 1009.102(a)(9). [3]
Appellee does not suggest, nor does the record support the conclusion that it would not be feasible for it to provide replacement services at the statutory daily level for an aggregate period of 365 days. Indeed, we note that the New Jersey no fault statute, the Automobile Reparation Reform Act of 1972, provides a daily maximum of $12.00 for such expenses payable "during the life of the injured person," subject to a total limit of $4,380.00 for any one person for any one accident. N.J.S.A. 39:6A-4(c).
In addition, in construing this particular provision of the No-Fault Act, we are also guided by the principle of statutory construction that presumes that the Legislature did not intend a result that is "absurd, impossible of execution or unreasonable." 1 Pa.C.S.A. § 1922(1). Under the interpretation urged by appellee, the replacement services provision would discriminate against victims like appellant, who needed replacement services for a few days a week, for a period longer than one year from the date of her injuries. Appellant would, under this proposed reading, be entitled to only a small portion of the maximum allowable for replacement services loss. In contrast, a hypothetical victim whose recovery period was a year or less might recover all replacement services loss, even though the dollar amount was much greater than the appellant herein was entitled to collect. Because this hypothetical victim suffered all her replacement services loss within a year of the accident, she would be entitled to more benefits than the appellant herein, who over several years might require the same amount of replacement services. Such a disparity in treatment between victims who have suffered the same loss is clearly unreasonable.
Furthermore, the construction favored by appellee is also unreasonable in that it departs in at least three ways from the statutory scheme of the Act.
(a) Under the No-Fault Act, "replacement services loss," with "allowable expenses," "work loss," and "survivor's losses," constitute basic loss benefits. 40 P.S. § 1009.202. Limitations for aspects of basis loss coverage are defined in Section 202. For "allowable expenses" (disposition of remains), "work loss," and "survivor's losses," the legislative pattern defined limits in terms of dollar maximums, i.e. not more than $1500 for allowable expenses, not more than $15,000 for work loss, not more than $5,000 for survivor's loss. There is no indication that the Legislature intended to break this established pattern based on dollar maximums when it came to replacement services. We therefore resolve the inherent ambiguity in the language of Section 202(c) in favor of maintaining the pattern of basic loss benefits.
(b) If the Legislature had intended to impose the kind of temporal limitation that appellee advocates with regard to recovery for replacement services loss, it would have specified the precise time period relevant for the purposes of replacement services loss. In fact, the statute is silent on when such a time period should begin. If this Court accepted the view that the phrase at issue referred to a single stretch of time encompassing one calendar year, we would next have to decide when the calendar year period begins to run against the victim. For the words of the statute do not specify whether the calendar year period begins at the time when the injury occurs, at the time when the victim incurs his or her first replacement services loss, or at the time when the first replacement services expense claim is submitted...
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