Wednesday, November 20, 2019

Pennsylvania Superior Court Rules that Gallagher v. GEICO Household Exclusion Decision Applies Retroactively



The Superior Court’s recent decision in the case of Kline v. Travelers, No. 104 MDA 2019 (Pa. Super. 2019 McLaughlin, J., Ford Elliott, P.J.E., Gantman, P.J.E.)(Op. By Gantman, P.J.E.), involved both the Sackett stacking issue as well as the issue of the retroactive effect of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court's eradication of the household exclusion in the Gallagher v. GEICO decision.

The trial court had ruled in favor of the insured on the Sackett issue but against the insured on the household exclusion issue.. Travelers appealed the Sackett issue, and the insured appealed the household exclusion issue.

In this Kline case, the Superior Court found in favor of the insured on both issues, vacated the lower court's decision and remanded the case for further proceedings.

The case involved issues surrounding whether the Plaintiff-insured was entitled to stack his UIM coverage on two vehicles that had been added to his policy prior to the accident where the carrier did not secure new waiver of stacking forms from him.  Another issue was whether the Plaintiff-insured was able to further stack coverage under a policy separately issued to his mother.  As such, there were inter-policy and intra-policy stacking questions at issue in this case.

With regards to the Plaintiff-insured's own policy, the Court in Kline ruled that prior precedent under the Bumbarger supported its decision that the Plaintiff should be permitted to stack the coverages under his own policy.

Relative to the Household Exclusion and the retroactive effect of the Gallagher decision, the Court in Kline ruled that, as a general rule, appellate courts are required to apply the law as it exists as of the time of appellate review before the court.  After applying the law of Gallagher, the court in Kline ruled that the Gallagher case rendered the Household Exclusion invalid such that the Plaintiff-insured could pursue stacked coverage that included the coverage under his mother's policy.

Anyone wishing to review this decision online, may click this LINK.

Sending thanks to Attorney Scott B. Cooper of the Harrisburg, PA office of Schmidt Kramer for bringing this case to my attention.

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