The Judge's View: The Importance of Law and Finance in an Aging World
February 20

Please join the Women's Law Caucus for a program featuring Judge Mary Hannah Leavitt of the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court for “The Judge’s View: The Importance of Law and Finance in an Aging World.” Judge Leavitt's presentation will focus on a 150-page decision she reached in May 2012 in Consedine v. Penn Treaty Network Insurance Co. The case has implications for students of the law of contracts, insurance, commerce, consumer rights, and public governance, including administrative law. Students will have the opportunity to ask questions. 

Penn Treaty Network American Insurance Company (“Penn Treaty”) was one of the earliest and largest sellers of long-term care insurance, and with a sister company, American Network Insurance, was licensed to sell policies in forty states. In 2009, Penn Treaty and its sister company were placed into rehabilitation by Pennsylvania insurance regulators with the agreement of the management of the two companies. In April of 2009, the Insurance Commissioner outlined a plan of rehabilitation that called for a series of rate increases for the companies’ first generation policies, called the “Oldco” products. Four months later, the Commissioner petitioned to convert the Penn Treaty rehabilitation into a liquidation, a request that requires court approval.  

In May 2012, the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania denied the liquidation petition. In a strongly worded opinion, the Court sent the parties back to the drawing board with directions to consider several steps, including the companies’ proposal for modification of policy-holders’ contractual benefits and premium structures for the Oldco policies. 

Judge Leavitt was elected to the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court in 2001. Judge Leavitt is a graduate of the Dickinson School of Law, where she was an editor of the Dickinson Law Review. She also holds degrees from Connecticut College and the University of Pennsylvania. Her professional career includes private practice, as a shareholder at the law firm of Buchanan Ingersoll, and in public service at the Pennsylvania Insurance Department, where she served as its Chief Counsel under Governor Dick Thornburgh.