Justia Pennsylvania Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

The issue this case presented for the Pennsylvania Supreme Court was the validity of modified terms, made by agreement of the settlor and beneficiaries, for removal and/or replacement of a trustee by the beneficiaries of irrevocable inter vivos trusts. The trusts at issue were all created by Walter Garrison, “Settlor,” founder and CEO of CDI Corp., a successful computer serving company. The trusts all named Settlor’s son Mark Garrison and any children Mark would have as beneficiaries. In 2017, Settlor and Beneficiaries entered into agreements to modify the Trusts pursuant to section 7740.1(a) of the Pennsylvania Uniform Trust Act (“UTA”). Settlor passed away in February 2019. Proceeding under the modified provision, Beneficiaries acted to remove the existing independent co-trustees and to appoint Dr. Mairi Leining, Christina Zavell, and Michael Zavell in their place. The existing co-trustees, when notified of Beneficiaries’ action, advised that they did not recognize the modifications to the Trusts as valid or their purported removal thereunder. Seeking to uphold the co-trustee replacements, Mark filed a declaratory judgment petition to test the validity of the 2017 modifications. The Supreme Court determined the lower courts’ extension of its holding in Trust under Agreement of Edward Winslow Taylor, 164 A.3d 1147 (Pa. 2017) to unified action of beneficiaries and settlor of a trust under section 7740.1(a) was improper. Judgment was reversed and the matter remanded for further proceedings. View "Trust Under Deed of W. Garrison" on Justia Law

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court granted discretionary review to consider whether the Commonwealth Court erred when it applied the plurality’s analysis in Easton Area School District v. Miller, 232 A.3d 716 (Pa. 2020) (Easton Area II) and ordered redaction and disclosure of the school bus surveillance video it determined to be an education record subject to the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). In 2016, Valerie Hawkins, on behalf of Fox 43 News (collectively, Requester), submitted a Right-to-Know Law (RTKL) request to Central Dauphin School District (the District), seeking a copy of school bus surveillance video which captured an incident between a 17-year-old member of a District high school basketball team (the student), and a parent of another player (the adult), who allegedly grabbed the student’s wrist during their interaction. The incident occurred in a parking lot outside the high school’s gymnasium, while the players and school staff were boarding the school bus following a basketball game. The adult involved received a summary citation for harassment related to the incident. Requester attached a copy of the citation notice from the magisterial district court record to the record request; the notice identified the adult and student by name as the defendant and victim, respectively. Karen McConnell, the District’s open records officer, denied the request for access to the video, explaining it was an education record containing “personally identifiable information directly related to a student or students,” which, according to the District, protected the video from release under FERPA, and consequently precluded its disclosure under the RTKL as well. The Supreme Court concluded the Commonwealth Court did not err when it applied the analysis articulated in Easton Area II and ordered the mandatory redaction and disclosure of a school bus surveillance video it determined to be an education record subject to FERPA. Accordingly, the Supreme Court affirmed the Commonwealth Court's order with instructions to the District to reasonably redact the students’ personally identifiable information prior to disclosure. View "Central Dauphin Sch. Dist. v. Hawkins, et al." on Justia Law

This matter involved permits issued by the Department of Environmental Protection (the Department) to Gibraltar Rock, Inc., a Pennsylvania corporation seeking to operate a quarry on a 241-acre property in New Hanover Township (the Township). The Environmental Hearing Board (Board) rescinded the permits finding that their issuance was inconsistent with statutory and regulatory requirements. The Commonwealth Court reversed the Board’s decision for reasons that were never raised by the parties, including that the Board’s opinion effectuated an unconstitutional taking. Based on its review, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court found that the Commonwealth Court erred in considering issues not raised by Gibraltar and then by reversing the Board’s rescission of the permits. The Court therefore vacated the order of the Commonwealth Court and remanded for the Commonwealth Court to consider the issue raised in Gibraltar’s petition for review. View "Gibraltar Rock v. Dept. of Env. Protection" on Justia Law

Appellee Linda Reibenstein undisputedly brought her claims against Appellant Patrick Conaboy, M.D., after the two-year period had run, and the death certificate undisputedly and correctly noted the medical cause of Reibenstein’s decedent’s death. The trial court ruled that the phrase “cause of death” referred specifically and only to the direct medical cause of death. Accordingly, it granted summary judgment to Dr. Conaboy under Section 513(d) of the Medical Care Availability and Reduction of Error Act (“MCARE”). The Superior Court reversed, interpreting “cause of death” more broadly to encompass considerations associated with the manner of death (i.e., legal cause). The Pennsylvania Supreme Court held that MCARE’s tolling provision could not bear the breadth of that reading, and reversed. View "Reibenstein v. Barax" on Justia Law

The issue presented was one of first impression for the Pennsylvania Supreme Court: whether trial counsel was ineffective for failing to object to a jury instruction in which the judge analogized jurors’ application of the “proof beyond a reasonable doubt” standard to jurors’ hypothetical decision-making regarding surgery involving a “precious one.” Appellant Gerald Drummond was convicted and sentenced to two consecutive life sentences for the shooting deaths of Timothy Clark and Damien Holloway. Holloway had an on-again, off-again relationship with Drummond’s sister, Annie. It was alleged Drummond did not approve of the relationship. Gunshot evidence suggested Clark was killed execution-style by an assailant standing behind him while Clark knelt with his hands interlocked behind his head. Holloway was shot in the cheek; he died later from brain hemorrhaging. After review of the jury instructions, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court concluded the instructions were reasonably likely to cause a jury to apply a diminished standard of proof in criminal cases, thus posing significant risks to a defendant’s due process rights. Accordingly, the Court found arguable merit to Drummond’s ineffective assistance of counsel claim. However, because counsel could not be deemed ineffective for failing to anticipate a change in the law, it affirmed the Superior Court’s order affirming the denial of Drummond’s PCRA petition. View "Pennsylvania v. Drummond" on Justia Law

In late 2012, 16-year-old Shane McGuire and a group of his friends smashed pumpkins and stacked bricks on the doorstep of a home in McGuire’s neighborhood. The teens were still on the property when the homeowner, City of Pittsburgh Police Officer Colby Neidig, arrived home with his wife and children. McGuire watched the family’s reaction to the vandalism and then banged on the front door and ran away, accidentally tripping over his own brick boobytrap in the process. Neidig saw McGuire running, and gave chase, catching McGuire, knocking him to the ground and punching McGuire in the face. Neidig was not wearing his police uniform at the time, nor did he identify himself as a police officer. Neidig called 911 and restrained McGuire until Officer David Blatt, an on-duty City of Pittsburgh police officer, arrived. Two years later, McGuire filed a federal lawsuit against Neidig, Blatt, and the City of Pittsburgh, asserting excessive use of force in violation of 42 U.S.C. § 19833 and state law assault and battery claims. Ultimately, the jury returned a verdict in McGuire’s favor, finding that Neidig used unreasonable force against McGuire while acting under color of state law under Section 1983, and that Neidig was liable for McGuire’s assault and battery claims as well. The issue this case presented for the Pennsylvania Supreme Court's review involved whether the City of Pittsburgh had a statutory duty to indemnify one of its police officers for the judgment entered against him in a federal civil rights lawsuit. The Supreme Court rejected the argument that a federal jury’s finding that a police officer acted “under color of state law” for purposes of Section 19831 necessarily constituted a “judicial determination” that he also acted within the “scope of his office or duties” for purposes of the Political Subdivision Tort Claims Act. Thus, the judgment was affirmed. View "McGuire v. City of Pittsburgh" on Justia Law

Appellant Demetrius Coleman appealed a superior court order vacating his sentence, and remanding the case to the Allegheny County Court of Common Please for resentencing. The Superior Court concluded the sentencing court erred in failing to sentence Appellant pursuant to the mandatory sentencing enhancement set forth in Section 9715(a) of the Sentencing Code, 42 Pa. C.S. § 9715(a), requiring that any person convicted of third-degree murder “in this Commonwealth who has previously been convicted at any time of murder . . . be sentenced to life imprisonment.” The issue presented for the Pennsylvania Supreme Court's review was whether the Superior Court was correct in concluding that the mandatory sentencing enhancement applied to a defendant such as Appellant, who killed three people simultaneously and was thereafter convicted of three counts of third-degree murder. Upon careful review, the Supreme Court concluded the sentencing enhancement did apply in such a scenario. View "Pennsylvania v. Coleman" on Justia Law

A declaratory judgment action was filed in the context of two insurance- company liquidation matters. The parties asserted they informally agreed, among themselves, and the single Commonwealth Court Judge overseeing the cases, to a procedure for a three-judge panel of the Commonwealth Court to render a decision to be reviewable via exceptions by the Commonwealth Court, en banc. However, as the agreement was not memorialized as of record, the party aggrieved by the panel opinion, the statutory liquidator, lodged an immediate appeal with the Pennsylvania Supreme Court after that opinion and order were filed, and then filed exceptions with the Commonwealth Court, en banc. After the Commonwealth Court, en banc, rendered a second opinion and order, overruling the exceptions and confirming the panel’s initial decision, the statutory liquidator filed a second appeal with the Supreme Court parallel to the first. This raised a jurisdictional question. The Supreme Court found two of four petitions filed were properly dismissed for want of jurisdiction. The other two were properly before the Court, and on the merits, the Court affirmed the Panel's July 9, 2021 order: “[t]here is simply no statutory authority for this well-intentioned proposal [or] any standard to guide the Liquidator’s establishment [of the proposal] or [the Commonwealth Court’s] evaluation thereof.” View "In Re: American Network Ins. Co." on Justia Law

Four named appellants were convicted of what was codified in Pennsylvania as second-degree murder, and ineligible for parole per 61 Pa.C.S. § 6137(a)(1). Appellants petitioned for review at Commonwealth Court, seeking a declaration that Section 6137(a)(1) was unconstitutional as applied on the grounds that depriving Appellants of any opportunity for parole violated the Commonwealth and federal constitutions. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court granted review to determine whether this suit was within the Commonwealth Court’s original jurisdiction to hear suits against government agencies like the Board of Probation and Parole (“Board”) or whether the petition fell within the statutory exception for petitions in the nature of post-conviction relief. The Supreme Court affirmed the Commonwealth Court’s holding that it lacked jurisdiction. View "Scott v. Board of Probation and Parole" on Justia Law

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court granted allocatur review in this case to determine whether the Commonwealth waived reliance on the doctrine of inevitable discovery where its Concise Statement of Matters Complained of on Appeal asserted only that the trial court erred in granting a motion to suppress filed by Appellant Nathanial Price because the affidavit of probable cause at issue failed to assert probable cause sufficient for the issuance of a warrant. Specifically, the Court addressed whether, under these circumstances, the doctrine of inevitable discovery constituted a “subsidiary issue” to the issue of the sufficiency of probable cause under Pa.R.A.P. 1925(b)(4)(v) and was thus not waived by operation of Pa.R.A.P. 1925(b)(4)(vii). Concluding that it was not a subsidiary issue and thus not preserved for review by the Superior Court, the Supreme Court vacated that court’s order. View "Pennsylvania v. Price" on Justia Law