By Kevin L. Connors, Esquire

As is well known, the Pennsylvania Motor Vehicle Act, requires a limited tort Plaintiff, having limited tort coverage under their personal automobile insurance policy, to prove a “serious injury”, requiring medical evidence of permanency and/or impairment of bodily function, to have waived the right, in an automobile negligence lawsuit, to seek non-economic damages for pain and suffering.

This legal principle has been the controlling law in Pennsylvania since enactment of the Pennsylvania Motor Vehicle Financial Responsibility Law in 1990.

Recently, the Pennsylvania Superior Court was asked to overturn a Motion for Summary Judgment that was entered by the Blair County Court of Common Pleas in favor of a Defendant, with the Plaintiff claiming that her two-year statute of limitations for injuries from a motor vehicle accident should have begun to run when the Plaintiff learned, through consult with treating physicians, that the injuries that she sustained in the motor vehicle accident were considered to be “serious”.

The case is Varner-Mort v. Kapfhammer, decided on January 21, 2015 by the Pennsylvania Superior Court.

The relevant background for this case was that the Plaintiff and Defendant were in an automobile accident on May 6, 2009. The Plaintiff filed a lawsuit against the Defendant on June 27, 2001, clearly more than two years after the motor vehicle accident.

In the Complaint, the Plaintiff alleged that she was entitled to recover personal injury damages, alleging the Defendant’s automobile negligence caused her injuries, with the Plaintiff’s husband also having a loss of consortium claim.

There was no issue as to the Plaintiffs having elected the limited tort option, when purchasing their automobile insurance policy.

The standard set by the PMVFRL requires limited tort Plaintiffs to prove a “serious injury”, simultaneously defined under the PMVFRL, 75 Pa.C.S. § 1702(a)(1)(A), as “a personal injury resulting in death, serious impairment of bodily function or the permanent serious disfigurement.”

Answering Plaintiffs’ Complaint, the Defendant averred that the Plaintiffs’ claims should be barred by the statute of limitations.

After Discovery was concluded, the Defendant filed a Motion for Summary Judgment, raising the two year statute of limitations defense.

In that Motion, the Defendant argued that the Plaintiffs’ statute of limitations began to run as of the date of the accident resulting in injury to the Plaintiff, with the Plaintiff contending that her statute did not run until she was aware that she had sustained a “serious injury”.

The Trial Court agreed with the Defendant, granting the Motion for Summary Judgment.

A timely Appeal was then filed to the Superior Court, with the Plaintiffs asking the Superior Court to consider “that the Motion Court below erred when it found, as a matter of law, that a limited-tort Plaintiff knew that she had suffered from a serious injury on May 9, 2009, on which date she saw an emergency room physician who found only mild weakness to the right lower extremity?”

As the Superior Court recognized, the general Rule in Pennsylvania regarding car accident cases is that the statute of limitations begins to run for an injured Plaintiff on the day of the automobile accident. Walls v. Scheckler, 700 A.2d 532 (Pa. Super. 1997).

In Varner-Mort, the Superior Court, addressing the issue of whether the Plaintiff knew or reasonably should have known that she sustained a serious injury within two years of filing her Complaint, held that although the Plaintiff knew, on the day of the automobile accident, that she had injured her back, and that her injury required her to seek treatment, the Superior Court nevertheless reversed the Trial Court, concluding that the Trial Court erred by granting the Motion for Summary Judgment, finding that there was a material issue of genuine fact as to when the Plaintiff became aware that her injury was “serious”.

In overturning the Trial Court, the Superior Court remanded the case back to the Trial Court, to allow the fact-finder, being jury, to determine the statute of limitations issue as well as the proof of serious injury issue, in reliance upon the Plaintiffs’ limited tort status.

This Decision significantly shifts the burden of proof from a Plaintiff to a Defendant, in limited tort cases, where a limited tort Plaintiff, days, weeks, months, or even years post-accident, is told by a treating physician that the Plaintiffs’ accident injuries are “serious”, effectively extending the two year statute of limitations that would otherwise be applicable, and would otherwise, in the normal course, run as of the date of accident.

In opening the statute of limitations beyond the typical two year period applicable to personal injury cases, defending the limited tort automobile accident cases will require a heightened scrutiny in terms of both objective and subjective proof as to what the Plaintiff knew and when, in terms of the seriousness of the alleged injuries.

Are you “serious”?

Quoting Homer Simpson, “if something is hard to do, then it’s not worth doing.”

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Questions concerning tort and/or contract liability that might arise in the context of casualty claims can be directed to Kevin L. Connors at [email protected] (Phone: 610-524-2100 Ext. 112).