Laura A. Findley

Summary

The Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia affirmed summary judgment for State Farm, holding that the 2002 amendments to W. Va. Code §§ 33-6-30(b-c), enacted in response to Mitchell v. Broadnax, are substantive and apply prospectively only; that the plaintiff lacked standing to assert a Broadnax claim because the Mitchell holdings govern only exclusions incorporated into policies between February 18, 2000 and June 5, 2002, while her policy's exclusionary language dated from January 1, 1990; that the policy's anti-stacking exclusions were valid and enforceable; and that she was not entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Justice Starcher, concurring, defended Mitchell as a modest premium-adjustment holding and detailed record evidence that State Farm raised premiums while adding exclusions, though he agreed retroactive application would be unfair. Justice McGraw, concurring in part and dissenting in part, would have rejected the majority's temporal cutoff on Broadnax claims as inconsistent with basic contract law and the ten-year limitations period.