Justia Pennsylvania Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

This case concerned the ownership of subsurface rights to a tract of land, the Eleanor Siddons Warrant, located in Rush Township, Centre County. The parties’ claims depended on whether a 1935 tax sale resulted in the transfer of the entire property or merely the surface rights. After extensive review of the historical law regarding tax sales of unseated land in Pennsylvania, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court concluded that the tax sale related to the entire property at issue, including both the surface and subsurface estates. Accordingly, the Court affirmed the Superior Court’s order vacating the grant of summary judgment in favor of the Appellants and remanding to the trial court for the grant of summary judgment to the Appellee. View "Herder Spring Hunting Club v. Keller" on Justia Law

Appellant City of Allentown (City) contracted with appellee A. Scott Enterprises, Inc. (ASE), to construct a new public road. After arsenic-contaminated soil was discovered at the worksite, the City suspended work on the project. Following testing, it was determined construction could resume if precautions were taken. Accordingly, the City instructed ASE to obtain revised permits and proceed with the project. However, the existing contract did not include terms regarding the potential for contaminated soil, despite the fact the City was aware there might be contamination prior to entering into the contract, and ASE declined to proceed, explaining it would incur substantial additional costs due to the contaminated soil. The parties made several attempts to reach an agreement in which ASE would continue the construction, but to no avail. Consequently, ASE sued the City to recover its losses on the project, alleged breach of contract, and sought compensation under theories of quantum meruit and unjust enrichment, as well as interest and a statutory penalty and fee award for violations of the prompt pay provisions of the Procurement Code. After a trial, a jury found the City breached its contract with ASE and also withheld payments in bad faith. In this discretionary appeal, the issue this case presented for the Supreme Court's review was whether an award of a statutory penalty and attorney fees under the prompt payment provisions of the Commonwealth’s Procurement Code was mandatory upon a finding of bad faith, irrespective of the statute’s permissive phrasing. The Court held such an award was not mandatory, and therefore reversed the order of the Commonwealth Court and remanded the case to the trial court for further proceedings. View "A. Scott Enterprises v. City of Allentown" on Justia Law

When 20-years-old, appellant Victoria Giulian was arrested and ultimately pled guilty to summary public drunkenness and harassment. At the same time, she was charged with misdemeanor disorderly conduct (later withdrawn) and underage drinking. To the two misdemeanors, appellant pled guilty. Approximately a year later, appellant was arrested and pled guilty to summary criminal mischief. Between 1998 and 2013, appellant had no arrests. She subsequently filed a petition seeking expungement of the summary convictions from her criminal history. The Commonwealth did not object to expungement of the withdrawn disorderly conduct charge and the guilty plea conviction for underage drinking, and the record of these charges was expunged. The Commonwealth did oppose expungement with respect to the other offenses. The Centre County Court of Common Pleas granted the petition with regard to the 1998 criminal mischief conviction, but denied expungement of the records relating to the 1997 public drunkenness and harassment convictions. The court acknowledged appellant was “conviction free for 16 years” after 1998, but determined appellant was not entitled to expungement of the earlier convictions because her 1998 arrest and plea meant she did not remain free of arrest or prosecution for “at least five years following the 1997 convictions” as required by 18 Pa. C.S. subsection (b)(3)(i). The Supreme Court considerd the statutory requirements for expungement of criminal history record information for summary convictions pursuant to 18 Pa.C.S. 9122(b)(3) and concluded the lower courts erred in holding expungement unavailable as a matter of law in this matter. The Court therefore reversed and remanded for further proceedings. View "Pennsylvania v. Giulian" on Justia Law

Appellant Ryan Safka was the driver of an automobile that crashed killing three of his four passengers. The investigating police officer believed that Appellant’s speed caused the accident. He, in part, relied upon data retrieved from the vehicle’s Event Data Recorder (EDR) which recorded the vehicle’s speed for the five seconds prior to the airbag’s deployment. In his vehicular manslaughter bench trial, after the evidence was closed, the trial court reopened it to permit the parties to present additional evidence concerning the reliability of the EDR data. The question this case presented for the Pennsylvania Supreme Court's review was whether the trial court erred in reopening evidence. The Court held that because it was a non-jury trial, the trial court had the discretion to reopen the record sua sponte to receive additional testimony to avoid a miscarriage of justice, and did not abuse its discretion by doing so. View "Pennsylvania v. Safka" on Justia Law

Candidate Joseph Vodvarka appealed a Commonwealth Court deicision which set aside his nomination petition as Democratic Party candidate for the U.S. Senate in a primary election held in April 2016. The Supreme Court reversed the Commonwealth Court's decision and ordered Vodvarka be placed on the ballot. At issue was a challenge to the register of voters, or the Statewide Uniform Registry of Electors or "SURE." The Supreme Court held that the signature of a registered voter whose name appeared in the SURE registry could not be stricken from a nominating petition solely because the address listed on the nominating petition was different from the address at which the signer was currently registered to vote. View "In Re: Nom. of Joseph Vodvarka" on Justia Law

In August 2012, Appellee Matthew Wolfe, then eighteen years old, engaged in sexual intercourse with a thirteen-year-old girl on several occasions. He was charged with and convicted by a jury trial for a number of sexual offenses, including two counts of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse. During Appellee’s trial and prior to sentencing, the United States Supreme Court issued its "Alleyne v. United States," (133 S. Ct. 2151 (2013)) decision, overruling its own prior precedent and establishing a new constitutional rule of law, grounded on the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court allowed appeal in Wolfe's case to assess the validity of the Superior Court’s sua sponte determination that a sentencing statute was facially unconstitutional under Alleyne. "We are not unsympathetic to the plight of the Commonwealth in Alleyne’s wake, given the volume of the mandatory minimum sentences that must be stricken, and the scale of the task of resentencing. We also appreciate that, in enacting the mandatory minimum sentencing regime, the General Assembly had acted in good faith reliance on the previous jurisprudence of the Supreme Court of the United States, which was discarded by that Court in Alleyne. Nevertheless, new constitutional rules of Alleyne’s magnitude often have unavoidable, wide-scale consequences." Accordingly, the Court affirmed the Superior Court's decision. View "Pennsylvania v. Wolfe" on Justia Law

In a direct appeal, the issue presented for the Pennsylvania Supreme Court's review involved a challenge to the regularity of the enactment of Act 192 of 2014. Act 192 began as House Bill 80 (“HB 80”), introduced in January 2013. Initially, HB 80 was a two-page bill which added the newly-defined offense of theft of secondary metal (such as copper and aluminum, or wire and cable used by utilities and transportation agencies) to the Crimes Code at Section 3935. The bill was titled, “AN ACT Amending Title 18 (Crimes and Offenses) of the Pennsylvania Consolidated Statutes, defining the offense of theft of secondary metal; and prescribing penalties.” After undergoing minor revisions, HB 80 was approved by the House and sent to the Senate. The Senate Judiciary Committee added a section amending the existing trespass provision of the Crimes Code to specify that an individual who trespasses in order to steal secondary metal commits a first-degree misdemeanor as a “simple trespasser.” Meanwhile, in April 2013, a separate House bill, HB 1243, was introduced and began proceeding through the General Assembly. HB 1243 changed various provisions of subchapter 61(A) of the Crimes Code, (the Pennsylvania Uniform Firearms Act of 1995). As amended on its second consideration in the House, the bill retained some of its original provisions and, important to this dispute, encompassed substantial additions to Section 6120, which generally prohibited counties and other municipalities from regulating the lawful ownership, possession, transfer, or transportation of firearms and ammunition. On October 15, 2014, HB 1243’s substantive provisions were folded into HB 80. The Supreme Court concluded that Act 192 violated the single-subject rule of Article III, Section 3 of the Pennsylvania Constitution. View "Leach v. Turzai" on Justia Law

Appellant Antyane Robinson appealed the PCRA court's denial as untimely his second petition for relief. Acknowledging that current Pennsylvania jurisprudence renders his petition time-barred, Appellant requested that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court create an equitable exception to the PCRA’s timeliness requirements. The Court declined Appellant’s invitation and affirmed the PCRA court’s dismissal of his petition as untimely filed. View "Pennsylvania v. Robinson" on Justia Law

A special complement of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania assembled to address multiple issues raised in this appeal. The underlying civil action was a defamation case arising out of a newspaper column written by defendant-appellee Karen Heller, and published in the Philadelphia Inquirer in November 2009. The column contained negative commentary about purported actions of plaintiff-appellant John Dougherty, who was the Business Manager of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 98 and a self-described public figure and a participant in numerous civic and philanthropic activities. When confronted with information demonstrating that the commentary concerning Appellant’s conduct was false, Appellee conceded the unfoundedness and publicly apologized. The misinformation, however, appeared on Appellee’s Facebook page for an indeterminate period of time after the apology and apparently remained available through third-party sources until several years later. Appellant’s attorneys expressed concern that video footage resulting from the deposition should not be displayed for any purpose beyond the litigation. Appellee’s attorney, for her part, repeatedly indicated that she intended to use the videotape solely for purposes of the litigation, and that she would abide by all of her obligations under the Rules of Civil Procedure and the Rules of Professional Conduct. She declined, however, to make a specific commitment that was asked of her by appellant's counsel. Appellee’s attorney then suggested an arrangement whereby the videotape deposition would proceed as planned, and she would agree not to give the tape to anyone for ten days, during which time Appellant could seek a protective order or other relief from the court. Appellant’s lawyers declined this proposal. The court of common pleas entered an order granting Appellee’s motion to compel and denying Appellant’s motion for protective relief. The court directed Appellant to appear for a videotape deposition within fifteen days. Although the court believed that the potential abuse of a videotape deposition was separable from the merits, it did not accept that the issue was so important as to justify as-of-right interlocutory appellate review. A divided en banc Superior Court affirmed. The issues raised by this appeal for the Supreme Court's review centered on a threshold objection to temporary judicial assignments to the Supreme Court and a challenge to a supplanted order that previously had dismissed the appeal. In addition, a jurisdictional question was raised concerning whether a common pleas court’s denial of a motion for a protective order of the videotaped deposition constituted a collateral order subject to as-of-right interlocutory appellate review. Finally, on the merits, the appeal of the common pleas court’s refusal to issue a protective order proscribing such dissemination. The application for relief challenging temporary judicial assignments made to the Supreme Court for purposes of resolving this appeal was denied. The Superior Court's order was vacated, this appeal quashed as an unauthorized interlocutory one, and the matter was remanded to the common pleas court. View "Dougherty v. Heller" on Justia Law

In 2008, Appellant Omar Cash shot and killed Muliek Brown at a car wash in Philadelphia. The shooting was caught on the carwash’s surveillance video, which showed Brown cleaning the tire rims of his car and Appellant approaching him from behind and shooting him in the back of the head. Following the shooting, Appellant fled the scene, and Robert Green, a carwash employee who watched the shooting take place on a monitor inside the carwash’s office, called 911. As one police officer secured the scene, his partner, Officer Pross, was approached by Marcus Howard, who indicated that he saw a light-complexioned male with a “Muslim beard” and wearing a black hoodie and Capri shorts, consistent with Appellant’s appearance, flee the scene. Officers would ultimately secure Appellant's arrest in New York City; he was extradited back to Philadelphia where he was charged with first-degree murder. Appellant would be convicted by jury and sentenced to death. He raised several alleged errors warranting the overturn of his conviction. Finding none, the Supreme Court affirmed. View "Pennsylvania v. Cash" on Justia Law