SAFE AUTO INSURANCE COMPANY v. RENE ORIENTAL-GUILLERMO, RACHEL DIXON, PRISCILA JIMENEZ, LUIS JIMENEZ, ALLI LICONA AVILA AND IRIS VELAZQUEZ
No. 26 MAP 2018
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF PENNSYLVANIA MIDDLE DISTRICT
August 20, 2019
Appeal from the Order of the Superior Court dated September 18, 2017, Reconsideration Denied October 31, 2017, at No. 3226 EDA 2016 Affirming the Order of the Lehigh County Court of Common Pleas, Civil Division, at No. 2015-C-1547, dated September 13, 2016. ARGUED: December 6, 2018. [J-104-2018] [MO: Todd, J.]
JUSTICE WECHT
JUSTICE WECHT DECIDED: August 20, 2019
Appellants in this matter, Priscila and Luis Jimenez, purport to raise two arguments. First, they contend that Safe Auto’s unlisted resident driver exclusion is unenforceable because it violates the Motor Vehicle Financial Responsibility Law. Second, they maintain that the same exclusion is unenforceable because it violates the public policy embodied in the Motor Vehicle Financial Responsibility Law. If those two arguments strike the reader as indistinguishable, the reader is not to blame. The blame instead lies with some of this Court’s prior decisions, which, as I explain below, have misconstrued the common law principle that courts should not enforce contracts that violate well-established public policy.
In their first argument, the Jimenezes contend that the unlisted resident driver exclusion at issue here violates Subsections 1786(a) and (f) of the Motor Vehicle
But the Jimenezes have a second argument: they contend that unlisted resident driver exclusions are unenforceable because they violate the public policy underlying the Motor Vehicle Financial Responsibility Law. In my view, this is nothing more than an invitation to elevate the extra-textual (and hence speculative) legislative intent of the Motor Vehicle Financial Responsibility Law over the plain and unambiguous statutory language. This is an invitation that we must decline. See
We have stressed that, in the absence of a conflict with an identifiable, well-defined, and dominant expression of public policy, courts should decline to displace written agreements on the basis of generalized public policy concerns. Hall, 648 A.2d at 760
Here, the Jimenezes have not identified a statute, precedent, or long-established governmental practice indicating that unlisted resident driver exclusions are prohibited (or even disfavored) in Pennsylvania. Instead, they focus their attention on the “public policy” concerns that led (ostensibly) to the enactment of the Motor Vehicle Financial Responsibility Law in the first place. The Jimenezes must be forgiven for any deficiencies
The flaw in the Jimenezes’ argument is that it blurs the line between legislative intent (a statutory interpretation concept) and clearly-expressed statewide policy (a prerequisite to finding that a contract violates public policy). See Burstein v. Prudential Prop. & Cas. Ins. Co., 809 A.2d 204, 221 (Pa. 2002) (Saylor, J., dissenting) (“It is crucial, however, to distinguish between reference to public policy as a means to determine the intent underlying a statute, and the direct application of overarching public policy to invalidate a contractual provision.”). When courts are tasked with interpreting ambiguous statutes, they are free to ascertain the intent of the General Assembly by considering, among other things, “[t]he occasion and necessity for the statute,” “[t]he circumstances under which it was enacted,” “[t]he mischief to be remedied,” “[t]he object to be attained,” and “[t]he former law, if any, including other statutes upon the same or similar subjects.”
In my view, the above-referenced multi-factor inquiry—which, again, is designed to help judges discern the meaning of ambiguous statutory language—is not especially useful when the question is whether there exists “a plain indication of” dominant public
While the Majority apparently accepts that, in some cases, it would be appropriate to regard the legislature’s supposed intent as a dominant expression of public policy for purposes of the void-for-public-policy doctrine, see id. (discussing the competing goals that the General Assembly allegedly sought to achieve when it enacted the Motor Vehicle Financial Responsibility Law), I believe that the “public policy” underlying the Motor Vehicle Financial Responsibility Law (i.e., the legislative concern—or, more likely, concerns—that led to the law) is simply irrelevant to that doctrinal question. The “public policy” question to be answered here is a common law inquiry: whether there exists a well-defined, undisputed policy against enforcing unlisted resident driver exclusions in Pennsylvania. Allowing judicial speculation as to legislative intent to serve as definitive proof of the existence of such a policy, for purposes of the void-for-public-policy doctrine, effectively would circumvent the cardinal principle of statutory interpretation that unambiguous statutes must be construed strictly according to their plain language. It would, in other words, allow courts to disregard the unambiguous text of a statute “under
Thus, while I agree with the Majority that Safe Auto’s unlisted resident driver exclusion is valid and enforceable, I would take this opportunity to clarify that divination of legislative intent alone cannot establish a dominant expression of public policy of the sort that is required under the substantive contract law principle that agreements which violate well-established public policy are unenforceable. Courts cannot invalidate contractual provisions based upon vague and nebulous public policy concerns, not even if the General Assembly most likely shared (though failed to codify) those same concerns.