Hartford Ins. Grp. Ex Rel. Chen v. Kamara

197 A.3d 229
CourtSupreme Court of Pennsylvania
DecidedNovember 21, 2018
Docket24 EAP 2017
StatusPublished

This text of 197 A.3d 229 (Hartford Ins. Grp. Ex Rel. Chen v. Kamara) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Pennsylvania primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Hartford Ins. Grp. Ex Rel. Chen v. Kamara, 197 A.3d 229 (Pa. 2018).

Opinions

JUSTICE BAER.

This appeal presents the issue of whether a workers' compensation insurance carrier may bring a third-party action against an alleged tortfeasor on behalf of an injured *230employee to recoup the amount paid in workers' compensation benefits where the employee did not independently sue the tortfeasor, did not join in the insurer's action, and did not assign her cause of action to the insurer. Reaffirming the well-settled proposition that the right of action against the tortfeasor remains in the injured employee, we hold that, unless the injured employee assigns her cause of action or voluntarily joins the litigation as a party plaintiff, the insurer may not enforce its statutory right to subrogation by filing an action directly against the tortfeasor. Accordingly, we vacate the judgment of the Superior Court and reinstate the order of the trial court, which sustained the preliminary objections filed by the tortfeasor and dismissed the insurer's complaint with prejudice.

On October 10, 2013, Chunli Chen was standing in the parking lot of Thrifty Rental Car when she was struck by a rental vehicle operated by Kafumba Kamara. Appellee's Complaint, Dec. 8, 2015, at ¶ 8.1 As a result, Chen sustained injuries to her head, back, and neck. Id. When the accident occurred, Chen was in the course of her employment with Reliance Sourcing, Inc., which maintained workers' compensation coverage through The Hartford Insurance Group ("Appellee" or "Insurer"). Id. at ¶¶ 7, 8. As a result of the accident, Insurer had paid $59,424.71 in medical and wage benefits to Chen pursuant to her employer's workers' compensation insurance policy. Id. at ¶ 9. Chen did not seek to recover damages for her injuries by filing an action against Kamara and/or Thrifty Rental Car (collectively referred to herein as "Appellants" or "Tortfeasors") and did not assign her cause of action against Tortfeasors to Insurer.

On September 15, 2015, when the two-year statute of limitations was about to expire on Chen's cause of action, Insurer sought to effectuate its subrogation right under Section 319 of the Workers' Compensation Act ("WCA"),2 77 P.S. § 671, by filing a praecipe for a writ of summons against Tortfeasors.3 In its subsequently filed complaint, Insurer captioned the plaintiff as "The Hartford Group on behalf of Chunli Chen." Appellee's Complaint, at Caption. The complaint contained two negligence counts, which asserted that each of *231the defendants were liable to Insurer and to Chen for injuries the defendants caused to Chen. The complaint was not verified by Chen, but rather by "Jaime Young[;] Workers Compensation Subrogation Specialist[;] The Hartford." Id., at Verification. The verification stated that the averments and allegations of fact made in the civil complaint "are true and correct to the best of [Young's] information and belief." Id.

Tortfeasors filed preliminary objections to Insurer's complaint in the nature of a demurrer, claiming that the complaint should be dismissed on two grounds. First, Tortfeasors alleged that Insurer's attempt to enforce its subrogation rights in an action filed directly against the alleged third-party tortfeasors was prohibited by this Court's decision in Liberty Mutual Insurance Co. v. Domtar Paper Co. ("Domtar Paper"), 631 Pa. 463, 113 A.3d 1230 (2015), which reaffirmed that "the right of action against a third-party tortfeasor under Section 319 of the WCA remains in the injured employee, and that the employer['s]/insurer's right of subrogation under Section 319 must be achieved through a single action brought in the name of the injured employee or joined by the injured employee."4 Id. at 1240. Because Chen was not a party to Insurer's action, Tortfeasors alleged that Insurer had no independent ability to commence a subrogation claim directly against them. Second, Tortfeasors posited that the complaint must be stricken for noncompliance with Pa.R.C.P. 1024(c) because the verification was not signed by Chen but, rather, a representative of Insurer who was not present at the accident scene and had no first-hand knowledge of the accident from which to plead the facts alleged in Insurer's complaint.5

In response to the preliminary objections, Insurer contended that it complied with Domtar Paper's requirement that the action against the tortfeasor be brought "in the name of the injured employee" because it captioned its complaint as being filed "on behalf of" Chen, rather than as "the subrogee" of Chen, which Domtar Paper precluded. Insurer also posited that the verification by Insurer's workers' compensation subrogation specialist, Jaime Young, was proper even though Young was not present at the scene of the accident because she had knowledge of the facts contained in the complaint through her work on Chen's workers' compensation claim. Insurer emphasized that Pa.R.C.P. 1024(a) permits verification on personal knowledge or information and belief, and that its verification was based on the latter.

On February 25, 2016, the trial court issued an order sustaining both of Tortfeasors' preliminary objections and dismissing Insurer's complaint with prejudice. In its opinion dated June 23, 2016, the trial court relied upon Whirley Indus., Inc. v. Segel, 316 Pa.Super. 75, 462 A.2d 800 (1983), for the proposition that "actions against a *232third-party tortfeasor must be brought by the injured employee; the workers' compensation insurance carrier has no independent cause of action against the tortfeasor under Section 319 of the Workers' Compensation Act." Trial Court Opinion, Jun. 23, 2016, at 4. The trial court interpreted this Court's decision in Domtar Paper as reaffirming that principle. Id. at 4-5. Accordingly, the trial court concluded that, absent Chen filing a complaint against Tortfeasors, Insurer lacked a legally cognizable cause of action against them in its own name or on behalf of Chen. Id. at 5. The trial court further held that Insurer's verification failed to comply with Pa.R.C.P. 1024 because Young had no first-hand knowledge of Chen's accident and the complaint did not state the source of Young's information. Id. at 6. Finally, the trial court noted that because Insurer failed to assert a legally cognizable cause of action against Tortfeasors, granting Insurer leave to attach a sufficient verification would have been futile.

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Bluebook (online)
197 A.3d 229, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/hartford-ins-grp-ex-rel-chen-v-kamara-pa-2018.