Lead Opinion
OPINION OF THE COURT
In this diversity action, we must determine whether the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania would consider certain conduct as falling within the definition of “use or maintenance of a motor vehicle,” as defined by the Pennsylvania Motor Vehicle Financial Responsibility Law’s ban on subrogation for certain types of insurance benefits, 75 Pa.C.S.A. § 1720. We predict that the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania would conclude that a driver who slips on grease from a nearby kitchen when he steps on the ground while alighting from a car is not engaged in use or maintenance of a motor vehicle. We will therefore reverse the decision of the district court.
The district court disposed of this case on motion for summary judgment. We have jurisdiction over the appeal from the district court’s final order pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291. Subject matter jurisdiction rests on 28 U.S.C. § 1332. We exercise plenary review over the district court’s order, both as an appeal from grant of summary judgment, Petruzzi’s IGA Supermarkets v. Darling-Delaware Co.,
II.
The parties agree on the relevant facts. On November 27, 1987, Robert Hilpl parked his car in the parking lot of the St. Johns Neumann Nursing Home. Hilpl was employed as a bid manager for Perloff Brothers, Inc., and had arrived at the nursing home to meet with representatives of Woods Management Services, a company that operated the nursing home’s kitchen. Woods Management was a prospective customer of Perloff Brothers, and Hilpl intended to present the Woods representatives with calendars, planning guides, and other business-related paperwork.
After parking his car and turning off the engine, Hilpl began to exit the vehicle. He placed his left foot on the ground and started to stand up, pushing off with his right foot from inside the vehicle. In the process, Hilpl slipped on a pool of grease or similar substance that had coated a section of the parking lot. He fell, striking his back on the sill of the ear door. At oral argument, the parties appeared to concede that the grease emanated from the nursing home’s kitchen.
Hilpl’s employer, Perloff Brothers, accepted responsibility for the injury, treating it as a work-related incident covered by the Pennsylvania Workers’ Compensation Act, 77 P.S. §§ 1-1602. Liberty Mutual Insurance Company (“Liberty Mutual”), the workers’ compensation carrier for Perloff, provided Hilpl with lost wage benefits and medical benefits. As of June 30, 1993, benefits totaled $285,-875.82. At the time of oral argument, benefits exceeded $400,000.
In addition to receiving benefits, Hilpl brought a third party action in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas, seeking damages for the injuries he sustained in the accident. Hilpl sued Woods Management, Neumann Nursing Home, and the nursing home’s parent organization, the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. Pursuant to 77 P.S. § 671, Liberty Mutual acquired a subrogation lien on the proceeds of this action by operation of law.
On June 30, 1993, the Common Pleas action was settled for $800,000. As part of the settlement, U.S. Underwriters Insurance Co., the insurer of the nursing home, and Maryland Casualty Co., the insurer of Woods Management, (hereinafter, collectively, “the Tort Liability Insurers”) agreed to assume responsibility for all amounts that had accrued on Liberty Mutual’s subrogation lien on or before the settlement date.
On October 1, 1993, the Tort Liability Insurers filed a declaratory judgment action in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania seeking to invalidate the subrogation lien pursuant to 75 Pa.C.S.A. § 1720. Section 1720 bars a compensation insurer’s right of subrogation to recover workers’ compensation benefits from an insured’s third-party tort recovery if the insured’s injuries arose from the maintenance or use of a motor vehicle. The parties filed cross motions for summary judgment, and on June 8, 1995, the district court entered judgment for plaintiffs. Liberty Mutual appealed.
III.
This controversy is easily located within the landscape of Pennsylvania law. It takes place at the intersection of the Pennsylvania Workers’ Compensation Act, 77 P.S. §§ 1-1602, and the Motor Vehicle Financial Responsibility Law, 75 Pa.C.S.A. §§ 1701-1798. Hilpl and his injury are clearly subject to the provisions of Workers’ Compensation Act. Section 319 of that act grants a workers’ compensation insurer subrogation rights to
The current dispute turns on the meaning of “maintenance or use of a motor vehicle” as defined by § 1720. The Tort Liability Insurers contend, and the district court agreed, that Hilpl’s actions in exiting his car fell within the scope of maintenance or use. Liberty Mutual argues otherwise, claiming that Hilpl’s injury did not manifest the degree of causal connection to the vehicle required by the Pennsylvania courts.
The answer to this question is obviously controlled by state law. We therefore begin with the relevant statute. Unfortunately, none of the terms in the phrase “arising out of the maintenance or use of a motor vehicle” are among those defined in 75 Pa.C.S.A. § 1702, the list of statutory definitions for the Financial Responsibility Law. The terms are also absent from the general definition section for the Vehicle Code. 75 Pa. C.S.A. § 102. There is therefore no controlling statutory provision for this case.
Absent controlling statutory authority, we turn to the decisions of the highest state tribunal to answer a question of state law. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court, however, has not ruled on the terms of this provision.
When a state’s highest court has not spoken on a subject, we must attempt to predict how that tribunal would rule. Kowalsky v. Long Beach Township,
We begin with Lucas-Raso v. American Mfrs. Ins. Co.,
The court next applied these principles to the facts of the case. In Lucas-Raso, the plaintiff had been injured when walking around the back of her car to reach the driver’s side. The plaintiff alleged that despite her physical position outside the vehicle, she was nevertheless an occupant of the car. The court considered this claim, noting that “it is not disputed that ‘maintenance and use’ is presumed if occupancy can be shown.” Id. The Superior Court ultimately ruled that she was not an occupant. More importantly for the current case, the court then made clear that occupancy alone would not satisfy § 1720’s requirement of maintenance and use. As the court explained, “Even if we agreed that ... [the victim] was an occupant, she must still prove the existence of a causal connection between the injuries sustained and the maintenance and use of the motor vehicle.” 657A.2dat4.
We believe that Lucas-Raso accurately captures the state of Pennsylvania law on maintenance and use of a motor vehicle. If nothing else, Lucas-Raso and the cases it surveys make clear that the crucial point for triggering § 1720’s maintenance and use prohibition is a causal connection between vehicle and injury. We therefore turn to that element.
In assessing whether the necessary causal nexus exists, we could — as the parties wish-— struggle with the legal equivalent of angels and pinheads. For example, the vehicle obviously was, in a sense, a cause of the accident: Hilpl was alighting from the car when he fell; the car was a part of the stream of events that lead to his injury. Viewing causation in these terms, however, makes it essentially all-encompassing: If not for the unfortunate coincidence of a multitude of causes, Hilpl, his ear, and a layer of grease might not have combined so painfully on that late November day. This approach to causation would bring § 1720 into play whenever an automobile was even tangentially related to an accident, since absent the car, the accident arguably might not have occurred. This in turn would contravene the Pennsylvania Superior Court’s repeated cautions that the Financial Responsibility Law was not intended to be a general liability statute, but rather a system of compensation for “losses directly resulting from motoring accidents.”
Fortunately, we can avoid this debate. It is a matter of hornbook tort law that every incidental factor that arguably contributes to an accident is not a “but for” cause in the legal sense. See Berry v. Borough of Sugar Notch,
In concluding that there was no causal connection between Hilpl’s alighting and his subsequent accident, we place particular reliance on the Superior Court of Pennsylvania’s discussion in Ohio Casualty Group of Ins. Cos. v. Bakaric,
A lay person’s consideration of this factual situation ... would probably produce a conclusion that any damages awarded [the couple] would not result from the use of an automobile by them, but from the wanton use of a gun. We believe that the proper legal conclusion should be the same.
Id. at 466 (quoting slip op. of trial court).
The sentiments expressed in Balearic convey our view of the present case. Pennsylvania law makes clear that “maintenance or use of a motor vehicle” requires causation. The court must determine the “instrumentality used to cause the injury.” Spisak v. Nationwide Mut. Ins. Co.,
IV.
We therefore conclude that the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania would hold that an individual who slips on grease from a nearby kitchen when he steps on the ground while alighting from his automobile has not been injured as a result of maintenance or use of a motor vehicle. Consequently, § 1720 of the Pennsylvania Motor Vehicle Financial Responsibility Law will not apply, and Liberty
Notes
. This section provides:
§ 1720. Subrogation
In actions arising out of the maintenance or use of a motor vehicle, there shall be no right of subrogation or reimbursement from a claimant’s tort recovery with respect to workers’ compensation benefits....
Id.; Walters v. Kamppi,
. The Tort Liability Insurers correctly point out that Pennsylvania’s Statutory Construction Act, 1 Pa.C.S.A. § 1921(c)(5), advises that former law on the subject may be considered in ascertaining the legislature's intent when the words of a statute are not explicit. For our purposes, however, we must first look to controlling state authority, and prior enactments are only persuasive, not binding.
Dissenting Opinion
dissenting.
The issue is whether the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, which had a long history of protecting the recovery of damages for injuries incurred by the drivers and occupants of automobiles, would have permitted the workers’ compensation carrier in this case to be subrogated to the recovery received by the driver. At the time of the accident in question, the Pennsylvania Motor Vehicle Financial Responsibility Law (MVFRL), 75 Pa. Cons.Stat. Ann. § 1720, explicitly barred a workers’ compensation carrier from subrogation for benefits paid if the injuries arose “out of the maintenance or use of a motor vehicle.” See 75 Pa. Cons.Stat. Ann. § 1720 (1984). The driver in this case, Robert Hilpl, was injured while alighting from the vehicle when he slipped and injured himself by landing on the vehicle. I believe that under these facts the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania would have held that Hilpl was engaged in the “use” of that vehicle.
The MVFRL replaced the Pennsylvania No-fault Motor Vehicle Insurance Act, 40 Pa. Stat. Ann. § 1009.101-1009.701 (repealed effective Oct. 1, 1984), which had defined “maintenance or use of a vehicle” as “maintenance or use of a motor vehicle as a vehicle, including, incident to its maintenance or use as a vehicle, occupying, entering into or alighting from it.” (Emphasis added). The MVFRL continues to use the phrase “maintenance or use” but does not define it. Thus, the strongest argument for the majority’s position is that there is no longer language explicitly covering alighting from a vehicle in the new law’s reference to the “maintenance or use” of the vehicle.
However, there is no legislative history to indicate that by enacting the MVFRL, the Pennsylvania legislature intended to exclude accidents occurring when a person exits a vehicle. Moreover, Pennsylvania’s Statutory Construction Act, 1 Pa. Cons.Stat. Ann. § 1921(c)(5), provides that it is appropriate to consider former law where legislative intent is unclear. Significantly, Pennsylvania intermediate courts have looked to prior statutes and case law interpreting these statutes to determine whether an injury “arises out of the maintenance or use of a motor vehicle.” See, e.g., Alvarino v. Allstate Ins. Co.,
In a recent Pennsylvania Superior Court case, the court reaffirmed that “maintenance or use” of a vehicle is presumed if the injured party is an “occupant” of the vehicle at the time of the accident. Lucas-Raso v. American Manufacturers Ins. Co., 441 Pa.Super. 161,
In Lucas-Raso, upon which the majority relies, the court found no “use” but that case is distinguishable. When the plaintiff fell in a parking lot it was not while she was alighting but while she was walking around her car with the intent of entering it. She did not come into any contact with the vehicle in the course of her fall, and it would indeed stretch “maintenance or use” language to encompass “intended use.” In contrast, in this case Hilpl had never completely disengaged from his use of the car.
Hilpl described his position at the time of the accident in the following picturesque manner:
Q. Where was your weight? Was your weight on your feet at that point as you rose from the seat?
A. No. My weight was still on — my butt was still, like, in the car, and my feet went out from under me. You know, if you*97 could only picture — you know, you’re getting out of the car and getting out of it front ways, and you have all of this and you’re inching out and your feet go out from underneath of you, like that (Witness indicating), and then you come down, and boom.
Q. So when your back hit the rocker panel — what you mean by the rocker panel, I’ll call the—
A. Where the door closes.
Q. The threshold of the door?
A. Yes.
Q. The bottom part that’s parallel to the ground?
A. No, the top part.
Q. Well—
A. Where the door closes. Where that silver thing is.
Q. Okay. Where the floor ends and the door part begins.
A. Yes.
Q. Okay. Now, when you came down, did you come down on to that rocker panel, that silver part you just mentioned?
A. Yes. That’s solid iron. That’s only a silver plate over that.
Q. And that silver plate is still within the car; correct?
A. Oh, yes.
Q. And, so, your back hit that portion still within the car?
A. Yes.
Q. After your back hit that portion, what did your body do?
A. I slid down on the ground.
App. at 194.
The majority appears to base its decision that Hilpl was not “using” his car when he was in the process of alighting from it and injured himself on the car’s rocker panel on the fact that the ear didn’t cause the injury. While it may be true that the ultimate cause of Hilpl’s injury was the grease left on the parking lot which he came in contact with, there seems to be no dispute that his injuries resulted from his physical contact with a portion of the car as he was exiting from it.
The majority concedes that under Pennsylvania law the causal connection required is not proximate cause; “but for” causation is sufficient. See Alvarino,