PA Supreme Court Rejects Two Civil Procedure Changes That Would Have Impacted Insurers.

The PA Supreme Court Rules Committee has apparently declined to proceed with two proposed changes to the rules of civil procedure that would have impacted insurers.

The first proposal, Recommendation 240, would have amended Rule 1020 to require pleading a single cause of action to recover for personal injury and property damage arising from the same accident. This would have had a large impact on subrogation cases (especially in the auto context) where a carrier paid a property damage claim, but then the insured wished to proceed with a personal injury action. Under the now rejected amendment, all of the claims would have had to have been brought in the same lawsuit.

Recommendation 239 has also been tabled. Under this recommendation, Rule 212.3 and 212.5 would have been amended to give the court more authority to require the presence of an insurance representative at pre-trial and settlement conferences.