Justia Pennsylvania Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

At issue before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in this case centered on a determination of Appellant Manheim Township School District (“School District”) that one of its students, Appellee J.S., made terroristic threats to another student through social media – outside of the school day and off school property – substantially disrupting the school environment, and leading to his expulsion. The Supreme Court granted review to consider whether the School District denied J.S. due process during the expulsion process and to consider the proper standard by which to determine whether J.S. engaged in threatening speech unprotected under the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, or created a substantial disruption of the school environment. The Court determined J.S. did not engage in unprotected speech, and did not cause a substantial disruption to the school environment. Therefore, the Court concluded that the School District improperly expelled J.S., and affirmed the order of the Commonwealth Court. View "J.S., et al. v. Manheim Twp. SD" on Justia Law

Jonathan Peters (Claimant) was employed by Cintas Corporation (Employer) as a uniform sales representative. In this position Claimant worked half-days in Employer’s Allentown, Pennsylvania branch office on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays, and traveled the remainder of those days, as well as Thursdays and Fridays, to meet with, and present products to, potential customers in the region around Reading, Pennsylvania. Following his last sales appointment on February 27, 2015, Claimant attended an Employer-sponsored event at a pub in Allentown called the Tilted Kilt. After leaving the event Claimant was injured in a motor vehicle accident. Alleging that the motor vehicle accident occurred during the course of his employment with Employer, Claimant filed a claim petition seeking partial disability benefits from February 28, 2015 to April 2, 2015, and total disability benefits from April 3, 2015 onwards. Employer responded, specifically denying that Claimant was in the course of his employment at the time of the motor vehicle accident. In a November 2016 decision, the WCJ denied and dismissed Claimant’s claim petition. The WCJ explained that for his injuries to be compensable under the Act, Claimant had the burden of demonstrating that he was in the course of his employment with Employer at the time of the motor vehicle accident, which required him to show that he was actually engaged in the furtherance of Employer’s business or affairs at the time of the accident. The WCJ wrote that he did not doubt that work was discussed at the event but that work-related discussions do “not transform every meeting into a business meeting.”Claimant then appealed to the Commonwealth Court, which affirmed. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court reversed, finding Claimant remained in the course of his employment through the event at the Tilted Kilt. Judgment was reversed and the matter remanded for further proceedings. View "Peters v. WCAB" on Justia Law

In 2015, Pittsburgh City Council passed Ordinance 2015-2062. The Ordinance supplemented Section 659.03 of the Pittsburgh Code of Ordinances, which already barred various forms of discrimination in housing. In early 2016, the Apartment Association of Metropolitan Pittsburgh (“the Association”), a nonprofit corporation comprising over 200 residential property owners, managers, and landlords, filed in the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas a Complaint for Equitable Relief and Request for Declaratory Judgment against the City, alleging that the Nondiscrimination Ordinance violated the Home Rule Charter ("HRC") and the Pennsylvania Constitution. The Association also sought a temporary stay of enforcement of the Ordinance, which the court granted. The parties submitted Stipulations of Fact and submitted the case for judgment on the pleadings (the City) or summary judgment (the Association). The trial court heard argument, and ultimately ruled in favor of the Association, declaring the Ordinance invalid. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court held that the HRC’s Business Exclusion precluded the Pittsburgh ordinance that proscribed source-of-income discrimination in various housing-related contexts. Accordingly, the Court affirmed the Commonwealth Court’s entry of judgment in favor of Apartment Association. View "Apt. Assoc. of Metro Pittsburgh v. City of Pittsburgh" on Justia Law

A majority of the taxable inhabitants of Highspire Borough, Pennslyvania (the “Coalition”) filed a petition seeking to be established as a school district independent from Steelton-Highspire School District (“SHSD”) for the sole purpose of having the new school district be absorbed into the neighboring Middletown Area School District (“MASD”). The Secretary of Education issued an opinion and order denying the transfer on the grounds that the academic benefits to be enjoyed by the transferring students did not outweigh the educational detriments imposed upon the students in the SHSD and MASD districts. In particular, the Secretary concluded that the transfer would undermine the financial stability of SHSD and put a strain on class size and facilities at MASD. On appeal, the Commonwealth Court reversed, taking issue with the Secretary’s consideration of finances and holding that the Secretary should have instead narrowly focused on the academic benefits that would be enjoyed by the transferring students. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court concluded that in this case, the Secretary properly considered financial impacts and appropriately focused on the quality of education for the students in all of the school districts associated with the proposed transfer. The Court therefore reversed the order of the Commonwealth Court and remanded for further proceedings. View "In Re: Appeal for Formation of Independent SD" on Justia Law

Appellee Northside Leadership Conference (NLC), was a non-profit community development corporation that owned contiguous real property in Pittsburgh situated in a local neighborhood commercial zoning district designated for mixed use. In 2018, NLC applied for variances and special exceptions necessary to, inter alia, maintain the retail space, remodel and reopen the restaurant and permit the construction of six additional dwelling units. In 2018, a three-member panel of the Pittsburgh Zoning Board of Adjustment (ZBA) conducted a hearing on NLC’s applications. Appellants Stephen Pascal and Chris Gates attended the hearing and objected to NLC’s applications. The ZBA ultimately granted the variance and special exception applications. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court granted discretionary review to consider whether the Commonwealth Court erred in approving a decision granting zoning relief despite: (1) the timing of the decision and (2) the alleged conflict of interest of one member of a three-member panel of the ZBA. We affirm in part and reverse in part, and remand for a new hearing before a different three-member panel of the ZBA.The Supreme Court found that the ZBA member ruling on the propriety of zoning applications brought by an organization on whose board she sat at all relevant times "so clearly and obviously endangered the appearance of neutrality that her recusal was required under well-settled due process principles that disallow a person to be the judge of his or her own case or to try a matter in which he or she has an interest in the outcome." The Supreme Court held the Commonwealth Court erred in rejecting appellants’ arguments on this issue and upholding the resulting tainted ZBA decision. Accordingly, the Court affirmed the Commonwealth Court’s order in part and reversed in part. The matter was remanded for a new hearing on the appellee NLC’s zoning applications before a newly constituted panel of the ZBA. View "Pascal, et al. v. City of Pgh ZBA, et al." on Justia Law

In 2002, Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine (“LECOM”) petitioned the Court of Common Pleas of Erie County to establish a private police force, which was granted. Since that time, LECOM has petitioned the common pleas court for the appointment of additional officers. Relevant here, from March of 2016 through November of 2019, the Honorable Stephanie Domitrovich had signed several orders, granting petitions filed by LECOM to appoint the private police officers. Judge Domitrovich’s son, Attorney Aaron Susmarski, represented LECOM in these matters. In 2019, a fellow member of the judiciary informed the Honorable John Trucilla, then-President Judge of the Court of Common Pleas of Erie County, that Judge Domitrovich repeatedly signed orders and granted her son’s petitions filed on behalf of LECOM. Judge Trucilla further became aware that Judge Domitrovich personally had signed her son’s name on a LECOM petition, personally filed some of the petitions on her son’s behalf, and personally submitted filing fees in relation to some of the petitions. Receiving no assurance from Judge Domitrovich that she would stop facilitating and adjudicating petitions filed by her son, President Judge Trucilla issued the administrative order now before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. The Supreme Court found the order was not appealable. The Court further declined to exercise King’s Bench jurisdiction over this purely administrative matter and, instead, invoked its general supervisory and administrative authority over the courts afforded by Article V, Section 10(a) of the Pennsylvania Constitution. The Court expressed its intent to dispose of this controversy internally, "as is typical of administrative court disputes." View "In Re: Domitrovich" on Justia Law

Appellant, the City of Johnstown ("Johnstown"), contended that a party asserting a firefighter cancer claim had to satisfy the requirements of both Section 301(c)(2) and Section 301(f) of the Pennsylvania Workers' Compensation Act to establish a viable claim. Michael Sevanick was a firefighter for Johnstown for twenty-nine years. After retirement, he worked a a car dealership. Nine years after he retired, Sevanick was diagnosed with kidney cancer. In 2016, he filed a claim for workers' compensation benefits, alleging that his cancer was caused by exposure to a carcinogen recognized as a Group 1 carcinogen by IARC during his time as a firefighter. The Workers' Compensation Judge found in Sevanick's favor, and Johnstown appealed. The Workers' Compensation Appeals Board found that Section 301(c)(2) did not apply, but rather that the limitations of Sevanick's claim were governed by Section 301(f). The Board reasoned that Section 301(f) created a new timeframe for cancer-related occupational disease claims made by firefighters. Because Sevanick raised his claim well within 600 weeks from his last date of employment as a firefighter, the Board concluded the claim was timely. The Commonwealth Court agreed with that determination. Johnstown petitioned for Allowance of Appeal for the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to determine whether a firefighter making a claim under Section 108(r) of the Act had to comply with the timing requirements of Section 301(c)(2). The Supreme Court concluded that the time for filing a Section 108(r) firefighter cancer claim was governed by Section 301(f) alone. Therefore, the Commonwealth Court's ruling was affirmed. View "City of Johnstown v. WCAB (Sevanick)" on Justia Law

In consolidated cases, the Commonwealth Court reversed determinations of the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (“PUC”), holding that Section 1301.1(a) required public utilities to revise their DSIC calculations to include income tax deductions and credits to reduce rates charged to consumers. Several public utilities sought to add or adjust DSICs to recover expenses related to repairing, improving, or replacing their distribution system infrastructure, and the Office of Consumer Advocate (“OCA”), through Acting Consumer Advocate Tanya McCloskey, raised challenges to these DSIC computations seeking to add calculations to account for income tax deductions and credits and thereby reduce the rates charged to consumers. The parties disputed whether and, if so, how the addition of Section 1301.1(a) into Subchapter A of Chapter 13 of the Code, requiring inclusion of “income tax deductions and credits” in rate calculations, should apply to the DSIC rate adjustment mechanism of Subchapter B of Chapter 13, 66 Pa.C.S. sections 1350- 1360. Broadly, the PUC and the public utilities argued: (1) ambiguity existed as to whether the General Assembly intended Section 1301.1 to apply to the DSIC mechanism; and, assuming for argument that it did apply; (2) that the Commonwealth Court’s application of Section 1301.1(a) improperly created conflicts with the statutory provisions governing the DSIC calculation; and/or (3) that certain existing DSIC statutory provisions could be read to satisfy the requirements of Section 1301.1(a). Though the Pennsylvania Supreme Court differed in its reasoning, it affirmed the outcome of the Commonwealth Court's judgment. View "McCloskey v. PUC" on Justia Law

In May 2017, a PennLive reporter, PennLive, and the Patriot-News (collectively, “Appellees”) requested disclosure of all of the medical marijuana business permit applications in Pennsylvania pursuant to the Right- to-Know Law (“RTKL”). The Medical Marijuana Act, as well as the Department of Health’s temporary regulations, explicitly provided that permit applications were public records subject to disclosure under the RTKL. The applications for the issuance of permits required extensive information pertaining to various facets of the applicant’s intended business, including, inter alia, financial and operational capabilities; community impact plans; site and facility plans; the verification of an applicant’s principals, operators, financial backers, and employees; a description of the business activities in which the applicant intended to engage; and a statement that the applicant was able to maintain effective security and prevent diversion or other illegal conduct related to their medical marijuana business. The Department denied Appellees’ RTKL request, in part, referring Appellees to redacted copies of applications posted on its website. Access to the certain other applications, which had not yet been posted, were denied. The Department did not independently review the applicants’ redactions, but accepted all applicants’ redactions that applicants deemed confidential or proprietary, or otherwise subject to redaction under the RTKL. This resulted in a disparity in redactions across the various applications. Appellees appealed to the Office of Open Records, claiming the Department lacked a legal basis for its redactions. The Department and Applicants filed petitions for review with the Commonwealth Court, asserting various claims of error with respect to the OOR’s ultimate application of the exemptions under the RTKL to their respective applications. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court affirmed the Commonwealth Court in two aspects: (1) rejecting the Department’s request to be relieved of its obligations to review all requests and determine what parts of a record are subject to disclosure and what parts are subject to redaction; and (2) rejecting Applicant Harvest’s contention that, its entire application should be deemed to be exempt from disclosure. The Court vacated parts of the Commonwealth Court's decision regarding Applicant Terrapin's claim its application was exempt from disclosure. The matter was remanded the Commonwealth Court for reconsideration of Terrapin's arguments for exemption. View "PennLive v. Dept of Health, Aplt." on Justia Law

U.S. Venture, Inc. (“Venture”) appealed a Commonwealth Court decision affirming the determination of the Pennsylvania Board of Claims (“Board”) that its dispute with the Commonwealth involving two grant agreements was not within the subject matter jurisdiction of the Board and that its claim was barred by sovereign immunity. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court found that any ambiguity within the relevant statutory provisions had to be resolved in favor of preserving sovereign immunity. Alternatively, the Court found these written grant agreements were in fact “grants,” which were not subject to the limited waiver of sovereign immunity. View "U.S. Venture Inc. v. Dep of Comm & Econo Dev" on Justia Law