One year later, the Liebs were in an accident; they were rear-ended by another car. They then sought UIM coverage, claiming permanent and disfiguring injuries. Allstate denied UIM coverage and the Liebs sued. The trial court granted Allstate's motion to dismiss and this appeal followed.

The United States Court of Appeals, Third Circuit, noted the Liebs' assertion that the waiver was invalid under Pennsylvania law because the Liebs never dated the waiver. Pennsylvania law states that precise language must appear in a waiver form and that the form must be signed by the first named insured and dated to be valid. Moreover, any form that does not specifically comply with these requirements is void. The Liebs read these rules to require that a waiver form be signed and dated by the insured and so, since the date was not put in by the insureds, the waiver was void. Allstate countered that the law only requires a waiver form to be dated in some way, not necessarily by the insured and insists that the fax written timestamp that appears on the form should suffice.

The Court of Appeals said that as a matter of plain reading, the state law does not say that a waiver form must be signed and dated by the first named insured to be valid; rather, it says that the form must be signed by the first named insured and dated to be valid. So, the court concluded, the only logical purpose for a date is to eliminate disputes about when such a waiver was effective. The Liebs' reading would allow wily insureds to file undated waiver forms in the hope of duping an inattentive insurer, only to later demand coverage if an accident were to occur.

The court stated that the issue in this case is not whether to apply the waiver statute strictly, but rather how to interpret that law in the first instance. In its view, the court ruled that the machine-written timestamp on the waiver form suffices for the form to have been dated in accordance with Pennsylvania law. The judgment of the district court was affirmed.

Editor's Note: The U.S. Third Circuit Court interprets the Pennsylvania UIM statute and rules that the fact that the insured did not date the UIM waiver form would not invalidate the waiver. The insured had no UIM coverage in this instance.