McKelvey v. Prudential Property & Casualty Insurance Co.

572 A.2d 769, 392 Pa. Super. 216, 1990 Pa. Super. LEXIS 778
CourtSupreme Court of Pennsylvania
DecidedApril 4, 1990
Docket2071
StatusPublished
Cited by12 cases

This text of 572 A.2d 769 (McKelvey v. Prudential Property & Casualty Insurance Co.) 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
McKelvey v. Prudential Property & Casualty Insurance Co., 572 A.2d 769, 392 Pa. Super. 216, 1990 Pa. Super. LEXIS 778 (Pa. 1990).

Opinions

TAMILIA, Judge:

This is an appeal from an Order granting summary judgment to appellee insurance company.

In the early morning hours of January 24, 1988, while appellant was sleeping at his vacation residence in the Poconos with his wife and two children, a loud noise awoke [218]*218the family and the house shook. Appellant ran out of his bedroom to check on his children who were screaming, and as he did, he glanced off the bedroom door frame, injuring his shoulder. He discovered the crash was caused by a motor vehicle which had veered off the roadway into the deck of his house, separating the deck from the house.

Appellant filed suit against appellee, his automobile insurer, for first-party benefits for his injury, claiming the injury arose out of the maintenance or use of a motor vehicle. Appellee claims the injury was caused by appellant’s own negligence in running into the door frame. The trial court granted appellee’s motion for summary judgment, finding the instrumentality causing appellant’s injury was the bedroom door frame and not a motor vehicle.

Summary judgment should not be entered unless the case is free from doubt. Since the moving party has the burden of proving that no genuine issues exist as to the material facts, the record must be examined in a light most favorable to the non-moving party; in doing so all well-pleaded facts in the non-moving party’s pleadings are accepted as true and that party is given the benefit of all reasonable inferences to be drawn therefrom. Summary judgment shall be granted if the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories and admissions on file, together with affidavits, if any, show that there is no genuine issue of material fact and that the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.

Hower v. Whitmak Associates, 371 Pa.Super. 443, 445, 538 A.2d 524, 525 (1988) (citations omitted).

Appellant argues the court erred in granting summary judgment to appellee because the main issue is whether appellant’s injury arose out of the maintenance or use of a motor vehicle which is a question of fact as much as law and is for the factfinder. We disagree, finding there was no genuine issue of material fact and appellee was entitled to judgment as a matter of law.

Appellee Prudential issued the automobile insurance policy under the Pennsylvania Motor Vehicle Financial Respon[219]*219sibility Law (“MVFRL”) which requires insurers to provide medical benefits in the event of injuries “arising out of the maintenance or use of a motor vehicle.” 75 Pa.C.S. §§ 1711, 1712. Appellant claims his injury arose out of the use of a motor vehicle because “but for” a car crashing into his home, he would not have jumped out of bed and run out of his bedroom, hitting his shoulder on the door frame. We cannot accept this argument. While we did use the less restrictive “but for” standard of causation in Varner v. Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company, 340 Pa.Super. 211, 489 A.2d 918 (1985),1 we did not ignore the extent of the relationship between the motor vehicle accident and the injuries sustained.

In Varner, the plaintiff suffered a fractured skull and fractured left shoulder after being in an automobile accident. While in the hospital for his injuries, plaintiff suffered complications due to medical maltreatment and he sought coverage for his additional loss from his no-fault carrier. The carrier argued the additional injuries did not arise out of the use of the motor vehicle but from medical maltreatment. We disagreed that the injuries did not arise out of the use of a motor vehicle since the medical maltreatment occurred during treatment of injuries directly and immediately received in the accident. We found it was probable that an individual would be hospitalized from a motor vehicle accident; therefore, there was a connection between the vehicle and injury and it was not mere chance or happenstance.

Causation was discussed in Roach v. Port Authority of Allegheny County, 380 Pa.Super. 28, 550 A.2d 1346 (1988). In denying the claim of Mrs. Roach, who was injured while riding a PAT bus when a fist-fight broke out between two passengers, we stated:

The fact that Mrs. Roach was on a bus was incidental to her injuries. Her injuries were caused by two men fighting, not the maintenance or use of a motor vehicle. The [220]*220causal connection need not rise to the level of proximate causation; however, some connection must exist between the motor vehicle and the victim’s injuries. This connection must be more than mere happenstance. We, therefore, fail to find the requisite causal link between the injury and the use of a motor vehicle; hence, we find no requirement of coverage under the Pennsylvania Motor Vehicle Financial Responsibility Law.

Id., 380 Pa.Superior Ct. at 35, 550 A.2d at 1350 (citation omitted). Similarly, in Alvarino v. Allstate Ins. Co., 370 Pa.Super. 563, 537 A.2d 18 (1988), relied on by the trial court, an injury resulting from a dog biting a passenger on a van did not rise from the use of the van and, therefore, was not covered by the policy coverage of the van pursuant to the MVFRL, 75 Pa.C.S. §§ 1711, 1712; 40 P.S. 1009.101-1009.701 (Repealed).

Appellant in this case acted in response to a crash but it was his own conduct which caused his injury rather than any contact by or with the vehicle or the use or maintenance of the vehicle. In cases with a much stronger connection between the vehicle and the injury, we have denied relief sought by appellants. In Metzel, et al. v. State Farm Mutual Ins. Co., 389 Pa.Super. 30, 566 A.2d 600 (1989), this Court found that occupants of a Winnebego motor home were not entitled to benefits under the MVFRL for injuries sustained as a result of an explosion which occurred while the vehicle was being used for lodging purposes. The outer limit of assessing liability as it relates to use of an automobile while not actually engaged in its primary purpose, is Spisak v. Nationwide Mutual Ins. Co., 329 Pa.Super. 483, 478 A.2d 891 (1984). In Spisak, plaintiff’s decedent was killed when he and a female companion engaged in “compromising activities” in the back of his vehicle which had been parked off the road with the engine running, the occupants being overcome by carbon monoxide poisoning due to a faulty exhaust system. That situation and Metzel may be distinguished in that in Metzel, the injury was produced by an instrumentality (a defective propane tank [221]*221valve) which was not an inherent part necessary to the use or maintenance of a vehicle, whereas in Spisak, the exhaust system of a motor vehicle, even when parked, is inherently related to the use or maintenance of a vehicle with its motor running. As announced in Schweitzer v. Aetna Life and Cas. Co., 306 Pa.Super.

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McKelvey v. Prudential Property & Casualty Insurance Co.
572 A.2d 769 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1990)

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Bluebook (online)
572 A.2d 769, 392 Pa. Super. 216, 1990 Pa. Super. LEXIS 778, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/mckelvey-v-prudential-property-casualty-insurance-co-pa-1990.