Sachritz v. Pennsylvania Nat. Mut. Cas. Ins. Co.

• Decision Date: 16 February 1983
• Parties: Ann SACHRITZ, Administratrix of the Estate of William Sachritz, Deceased, Appellant, v. PENNSYLVANIA NATIONAL MUTUAL CASUALTY INSURANCE COMPANY, Appellee.
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

Page 101

455 A.2d 101

500 Pa. 167

Ann SACHRITZ, Administratrix of the Estate of William Sachritz, Deceased, Appellant, v. PENNSYLVANIA NATIONAL MUTUAL CASUALTY INSURANCE COMPANY, Appellee.

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

Argued Sept. 21, 1982.

Decided Dec. 31, 1982.

Reargument Denied Feb. 16, 1983.

Richard Rosenzweig, Rosenzweig, Rosenzweig & Burton, Pittsburgh, for appellant.

John C. Carlin, Jr., Pittsburgh, for appellee.

Before O'BRIEN, C.J., and ROBERTS, NIX, LARSEN, FLAHERTY, McDERMOTT and HUTCHINSON, JJ.

OPINION OF THE COURT

HUTCHINSON, Justice.

In this case the Superior Court held appellant's claim for "post-mortem" work loss benefits was barred by the two year statute of limitations in Section 106(c)(1) of the No-fault Motor Vehicle Insurance Act, Act of July 19, 1974, P.L. 489, No. 176 §§ 101-701, 40 P.S. §§ 1009.101-1009.701 (Supp.1982). We granted review to consider the applicability of the limitations provisions of Sections 106(c)(1) and 106(c)(2) of the Act to the various types of no-fault benefits the legislature has provided in partial replacement of traditional tort damages for personal injury arising out of the operation of automobiles. Upon such review we have concluded that the legislature has provided comprehensive statutes of limitations in Sections 106(c)(1) and 106(c)(2), covering all no-fault benefits by drafting these sections on analogy to the statutes of limitations on traditional tort actions for personal injuries under our law, including survival actions and actions for wrongful death. Since appellant's claim for "post-mortem" work loss benefits is barred by Section 106(c)(1) of the Act, we affirm the Superior Court.

William Sachritz died on September 5, 1976, from injuries received in an automobile accident on August 16, 1976. His administratrix (Appellant) filed a claim under the provisions of the No-fault Insurance Act with Pennsylvania National Mutual Casualty Insurance Company for no-fault benefits totaling $7,157.86, made up of a funeral expense allowance ($1,500.00), survivor's benefit ($5,000.00), work loss benefit ($553.86), and medical bills ($104.00). She received a payment for the full claim of seven thousand one hundred fifty-seven dollars and eighty-six cents ($7,157.86) on February 28, 1977. On April 12, 1979, the Superior Court filed its opinion in Heffner v. Allstate Insurance Company, 265 Pa.Superior Ct. 181, 401 A.2d 1160 (1979) and decedent's administratrix promptly filed a second claim for the "post-mortem" work loss benefits approved in Heffner. The payment of this second claim was refused by the insurance company and the present action was then filed on July 23, 1979.

The claim here is for the difference between the amount of work loss benefits claimed and paid on February 28, 1977, and the full amount of "post-mortem" benefits ($15,000.00) allowed to survivors of deceased victims under the judgment awarded by the Superior Court and affirmed by this Court in Heffner v. Allstate Insurance Company, 491 Pa. 447, 421 A.2d 629 (1980). The Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas granted appellee's motion for summary judgment and the Superior Court affirmed ¹ that order dismissing appellant's claim on the ground that the claim is barred by Section 106(c)(1) of the No-fault Insurance Act. ²

In Heffner, we affirmed the Superior Court's holding that work loss benefits did not terminate on death of the injured party, pointing out that their continuation beyond death was analogous to the continuation of tort damages for economic loss to a decedent provided by our survival acts. We noted that "survivor's benefits" were analogous to the tort damages provided by our wrongful death acts for the economic loss suffered by the surviving members of decedent's family specified in those acts, as a result of his death from tortiously inflicted injuries. Id. at 460, 421 A.2d 629. This analogy is particularly striking in the context of the legislature's provision of the same one year statute which then prevailed for wrongful death in Section 106(c)(2) relating to no-fault survivor's benefits and the same two year statute prevailing for other no-fault benefits due the decedent, including work loss benefits, under Section 106(c)(1).

The work loss benefits allowed to survivors of deceased victims in the Heffner case have been labelled "post-mortem" benefits by the Superior Court in its opinion in this case, Sachritz v. Pennsylvania National Mutual Casualty Insurance Company, 293 Pa.Superior Ct. 483, 439 A.2d 678 (1981). We have adopted this designation in this opinion for convenience, but without any implication that they are an additional category of no-fault benefits created by the Court. Such "post-mortem" benefits are not survivor's benefits, designed to compensate certain designated persons for the damages they suffer as a result of the insured's death in a manner analogous to tort damages available under the wrongful death provisions of the acts of April 15, 1851 and April 26, 1855, ³ governed in no-fault by the limitations of Section 106(c)(2), but simply continuing work loss benefits, designed to compensate the decedent's estate for the loss the insured himself suffered by having his earning power cut off by death, in a manner analogous to the survival acts, ⁴ and so governed in no-fault by the limitations of Section 106(c)(1). Consequently, appellant's argument that neither of the limitations on actions to recover benefits in subsection 106(c) of the No-fault Insurance Act applies to "post-mortem" benefits because these are neither "survivor's benefits," subject to Section 106(c)(2), ⁵ nor benefits arising "otherwise than from death," subject to Section 106(c)(1), must fail. While they are not survivor's benefits they do arise "otherwise than from death," specifically from the work loss resulting from the effects of the covered injury, for which benefits are not terminated by death under Heffner.

Arguing the legislature did not foresee the provision of work loss benefits to the injured insured beyond his death, appellant suggests that the statutory provisions have left the Heffner type of "post-mortem" work loss benefits outside the limitations of Section 106(c)(1). Following appellant's reasoning, Section 106(c)(2) would, also, not apply to Heffner type work loss benefits, if we consider "survivor's benefits" to include only those designed to compensate statutorily designated survivors for their economic loss and not the insured himself or his representative. Appellant, therefore, urges us to adopt the reasoning of the Superior Court in Wright v. Allstate Insurance Company, 271 Pa.Superior Ct. 559, 414 A.2d 395 (1979) and to apply the general six year statute limiting contract actions. Act of March 27, 1713, 1 Sm.L. 12, § 1, 12 P.S. § 31.

In Wright the Superior Court held that funeral expenses are not "survivor's benefits" within the meaning of Section 106(c)(2) of the No-fault Insurance Act on the basis of our opinion in France's Estate, 75 Pa. 220 (1874), allowing the claim of a deceased widow's executor to recover from decedent's executor funds expended for decedent's funeral expenses. France's Estate is grounded in the concept that the husband is primarily responsible for his and his wife's funeral expenses because of their status, and not in the wife's position as a "survivor" entitled to recover funeral expenses as a loss arising from his death. In Wright, the Superior Court did not address the wrongful death provisions of the Act of April 26, 1855 or the language in its own Heffner opinion noting that the persons entitled to recover wrongful death action damages, including the present value of services the victim would have rendered to his family if he had lived and his funeral expenses, "do not include the victim's estate generally, but [are] the 'husband, widow, children, or parents of the deceased, and no other relatives.' " ⁶ Having held that funeral expenses are neither "survivor's benefits" subject to Section 106(c)(2), nor benefits arising from loss "otherwise than from death", subject to Section 106(c)(1) within the meaning of the No-fault Insurance Act, the Superior Court in Wright concluded that neither the one year nor the two year limitation on actions in Section 106(c) was applicable to a claim for funeral expenses. The Wright court then proceeded to apply the general six year statute of limitations for actions on a contract without specialty found in the Act of March 27, 1713 on the theory that appellant's cause of action was derived from the insurance contract. The Wright court failed to consider either the nature of the benefits or the No-fault Insurance Act's purpose in substituting its benefits for those previously available in tort to the decedent's survivors under the wrongful death act or to his estate under the survival acts.

Such an analysis seems to us too narrow and smacks of the old formalism of common law analysis turning on the form of action. In 1895, Pennsylvania rejected this formalism with respect to limitations when the legislature provided that actions in trespass and trespass on the case would no longer be governed by different statutes of limitations tied to the form of action, but by differing periods of two or six years depending on whether the action sought damages for personal injury or property loss. ⁷ Since the benefits provided by our No-fault Insurance Act are clearly designed to reimburse injured parties for losses resulting from personal injury, we believe the more appropriately analogous general statute of limitations stems not from the old action in assumpsit, but from the actions in trespass and trespass on the case, involving injury to the person and the derivative statutes pertaining to survival actions and wrongful death. ⁸ We do not find the reasoning in Wright persuasive, either as to the inapplicability of Section 106(c) or as to the choice of an alternative general statute of...