PROGRESSIVE NORTHERN INS. CO. v. HENRY, 607 Pa. 94 (2010)

4 A.3d 153

PROGRESSIVE NORTHERN INSURANCE COMPANY, Respondent v. Robert L. HENRY, Deborah M. Henry, and Ryan Henry, Petitioners.

No. 474 MAL 2009.Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, Middle District.
September 8, 2010.

Petition for Allowance of Appeal, No. 474 MAL 2009, from the Order of the Memorandum Opinion and Order of the Superior Court at No. 1102 MDA 2008 dated June 8, 2009 reversing the Order of the Court of Common Pleas of York County at No. 2006-SIM405-Y01.

Prior report: Pa.Super., 981 A.2d 331.

ORDER
PER CURIAM.

AND NOW, this 8th day of September, 2010, the Petition for Allowance of Appeal is hereby GRANTED. The order of the Superior Court dated June 4, 2009, reversing the order of the Court of Common Pleas of York County is hereby VACATED, and the matter is REMANDED for the Superior Court to affirm the order of the trial court and to direct the trial court to reinstate the award entered by the arbitration panel. See generally Kvaemer Metals Division of Kvaemer U.S., Inc. v. Commercial Union Ins. Co., 589 Pa. 317, 908 A.2d 888, 897 (2006) (stating that a court must give effect to policy

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language that is clear and unambiguous; alternatively when a policy provision is ambiguous, the policy must be construed in favor of the insured and against the insurer which drafts the contract).

Justice SAYLOR files a Dissenting Statement which Chief Justice CASTILLE joins.

Justice SAYLOR, dissenting.

I respectfully dissent.

The allocatur stage is normally reserved for making the threshold determination of whether or not to grant discretionary review. See Supreme Court IOP § 5C. Thus, I continue to believe that the use of per curiam
orders effectuating reversals on the merits at this stage should be reserved for a very narrow set of clear-cut cases, in which there is directly relevant authority that indisputably controls the point in question. Accord Supreme Court IOP § 3B(5); County of Berks v. Int’l Bhd. of Teamsters Local Union No. 429, 600 Pa. 128, 963 A.2d 1272, 1272-73
(2009) (Saylor, J., dissenting). In my view, the majority’s citation to Kvaemer Metals Division of Kvaemer U.S., Inc. v. Commercial Union Insurance Company, 589 Pa. 317, 908 A.2d 888, 897 (2006), does not satisfy the above standard, since that case is not directly on point. Moreover, the accompanying parenthetical that generally discusses the dichotomy of ambiguous and unambiguous insurance policy language falls far short of the necessary explanation of the decision’s controlling significance here.

Chief Justice CASTILLE joins this Dissenting Statement.

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