Justia Pennsylvania Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

In 2007, Jared Wolfe was injured when his vehicle was hit from behind by an automobile driven by Karl Zierle. Wolfe attributed blame to Zierle and demanded $25,000 from Zierle’s insurer carrier, Appellant Allstate Property and Casualty Insurance Company, equating to half the liability limits under the applicable policy. Allstate counteroffered $1,200, which Wolfe refused. Wolfe then instituted a personal injury action against Zierle seeking compensatory damages grounded in negligence. Allstate assumed Zierle’s defense while maintaining its additional right, under the policy, to effectuate a settlement. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court accepted certification from a federal appeals court to clarify whether, under Pennsylvania law, an insured may assign the right to recover damages from his insurance company deriving from the insurer’s bad faith toward the insured. The Court concluded that the entitlement to assert damages under Pennsylvania law may be assigned by an insured to an injured plaintiff and judgment creditor such as Wolfe. Having answered the certified question, the Court returned the matter to the federal court. View "Allstate Prop & Casualty Ins Co. v. Wolfe" on Justia Law

The issue this case presented for the Supreme Court's review was whether the Superior Court erred in holding the right of a juvenile accused to be confronted with a witness against him conferred by the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution was violated where the juvenile court admitted into evidence an out-of-court, video-taped, forensic interview of a child complainant under the Tender Years Hearsay Act (“TYHA”), even though defense counsel did not cross-examine the child complainant who had taken the witness stand at the juvenile’s contested adjudication hearing. In light of the unique circumstances of this case (wherein the Commonwealth conceded continued questioning of the unconversable child complainant on direct examination would have been futile, and the juvenile court suggested she be removed from the witness stand), the Supreme Court held the admission of the recorded forensic interview of the child complainant violated the juvenile accused’s right to confrontation under the Sixth Amendment. Accordingly, the Court affirmed. View "In the Interest of: N.C." on Justia Law

The issue this discretionary appeal presented for the Supreme Court's review centered on whether the class action proceedings in this case improperly subjected Appellants to a “trial by formula.” The trial court certified the class, a jury rendered a divided verdict, and the Superior Court affirmed in part and reversed in part. Appellees brought various class action claims against their former employers, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., and Sam’s Club (collectively, “Wal-Mart”), based on policies and conduct pertaining to rest breaks and meal breaks. Appellees alleged Wal-Mart promised them paid rest and meal breaks, but then had forced them, in whole or in part, to miss breaks or work through breaks, and also to work “off-the-clock.” The trial court certified a class consisting of "all [then] current and former hourly employees of Wal-Mart in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania from March 19, 1998 to the present December 27, 2005.” The class ultimately consisted of 187,979 members. Ultimately, the jury rendered a verdict in favor of Wal-Mart on all claims relating to meal breaks but in favor of Appellees on all claims relating to rest breaks and off-the-clock work. The amount of the judgment ultimately entered on the verdict was $187,648,589. After Wal-Mart appealed, the Superior Court affirmed in part and reversed in part in a published unanimous per curiam opinion, which corrected a patent mathematical error committed by the trial court, reversed the award of attorneys’ fees, and remanded to the trial court to recalculate the lodestar it had employed to determine the amount of attorneys’ fees. The issues Wall-Mart's appeal raised for the Supreme Court's review were: (1) whether Wal-Mart was subjected to a “trial by formula,” (suggesting that the class claims could only be properly proven by an individual examination of the 187,979 class members to determine their claims); and (2) whether Appellees were thereby improperly relieved of their burden to produce class-wide common evidence on key elements of their claims. The Supreme Court found there was a single, central, common issue of liability here: whether Wal-Mart failed to compensate its employees in accordance with its own written policies. On that question, both parties presented evidence. Wal-Mart’s liability was proven on a classwide basis. Damages were assessed based on a computation of the average rate of an employee’s pay (about eight dollars per hour) multiplied by the number of hours for which pay should have been received but was not. In the Court's view, "this was not a case of 'trial by formula' or of a class action 'run amok.'" Accordingly, the judgment of the Superior Court was affirmed. View "Hummel v. Walmart Stores, Inc" on Justia Law

The issue this case presented for the Supreme Court's review centered on whether a law firm’s post-election forgiveness of a political campaign committee’s unpaid legal fees, which were incurred due to the firm’s representation of a candidate in a ballot challenge, is subject to the contribution limitations established in the Philadelphia Campaign Finance Law (as applicable in 2007). The Commonwealth Court held that the post-election forgiveness of debt would constitute a “contribution” to the candidate’s political campaign under Section 1001(6) of the Code, and, thus, was subject to the $10,000 per year contribution limitation set forth in Section 1001(2). After its review, the Supreme Court reversed, concluding that the law firm’s forgiveness of debt would not constitute a contribution to the candidate’s political campaign as the debt at issue was not incurred “for use in . . . influencing the election of the candidate.” View "O'Connor v. City of Phila." on Justia Law

Appellant, who had been inside the house, heard the officers enter, and fled through a third-story window, wearing only a pair of sweatpants and socks. He ran along a rooftop, jumped onto a car parked in an adjacent alley, and then ran to the home of Michele Gray. He informed Gray that he had beaten his girlfriend, Angelina Taylor, and that he had fled when he had heard the police in the house. He also told her that at the time he fled, Taylor had been pale, motionless, unresponsive, and having trouble breathing. Meanwhile, the officers made their way to the rear bedroom on the third floor, where they discovered a woman, later identified as Angelina Taylor, naked under a sheet on a mattress on the floor. Taylor was seriously injured, with numerous bruises and cuts visible on her face and body, including her pelvic region, as well as severe bruising on both sides of her throat and around both eyes. Officers called for emergency response personnel, who took the victim to the hospital. She was diagnosed as comatose due to bleeding in the brain. In the trauma unit, a rape-kit examination was conducted, which revealed numerous lacerations, bruises and abrasions. The victim never regained consciousness and her brainstem herniated from the swelling inside her head. Appellant was arrested, and a jury found Appellant guilty of first-degree murder and rape. The PCRA judge, who had also presided at trial, denied Appellant's petition for post-conviction relief, and Appellant appealed to the Supreme Court. Appellant raised twelve issues for review. Taking each and turn and finding Appellant did not meet his burden for relief, the Supreme Court affirmed the PCRA court's decision. View "Pennsylvania v. Davido" on Justia Law

In an interlocutory appeal, the issues before the Supreme Court were: (1) whether a negligence claim brought against an insurer by its insureds for alleged statements made by the insurer’s adjuster and an engineer the insurer had retained (that mold the insureds discovered while performing home renovations was harmless and that they should continue their renovations) was barred by the “gist of the action” doctrine on the grounds that the true gist or gravamen of the action was an alleged breach of the insurance contract (their homeowners’ policy); and (2) whether the provisions of Pa.R.C.P. 1042.1 and 1042.3 required the insureds to obtain a certificate of merit in order for them to proceed with their negligence suit against the professional engineer employed by the insurer to evaluate the mold. After careful review, the Supreme Court held that the insureds’ negligence claim was not barred by the gist of the action doctrine, as the claim was based on an alleged breach of a social duty imposed by the law of torts, and not a breach of a duty created by the underlying contract of insurance. Furthermore, the Court concluded that the insureds were not required to obtain a certificate of merit in order to proceed with their negligence suit against the professional engineer, since they were not patients or clients of the engineering company which employed him. Consequently, the Court reversed the Superior Court and remanded for further proceedings. View "Bruno v. Erie Insurance" on Justia Law

Appellant was charged with a possessory weapons offense deriving from the use of a firearm in a broader criminal undertaking, although, factually, another person (Appellant’s brother) actually possessed the weapon during the episode and the defendant himself was unarmed. The weapon offense at issue, “[f]irearms not to be carried without a license,” pertained, inter alia, when an individual carries a concealed firearm on his person without a license. Such permutation, on its face did not apply to unarmed co-perpetrators in a larger criminal undertaking who simply were not “carr[ying] a firearm concealed on or about [their] person.” Nevertheless, the Superior Court’s opinion in this case was that the possessory weapons offense extended to persons who could have been accomplices in the abstract. The Supreme Court found that the Superior Court should have analyzed whether the evidence and reasonable inferences, taken in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth as the verdict winner, supported a conclusion that Appellant, acting with the intent to promote or facilitate his brother’s unlicensed carrying of a concealed firearm, solicited his brother to commit such offense or aided, agreed, or attempted to aid his brother in doing so. "In the absence of such a focused examination, the intermediate court’s broader assertion that, as accomplices, Appellant and his brother each were criminally liable for the other’s actions in the abstract is unsustainable." View "Pennsylvania v. Knox" on Justia Law

On Friday, January 9, 2009, after business hours, an unidentified motor vehicle crashed into and felled a utility pole carrying electric lines owned and operated by Duquesne Light. Several wires were connected to Burton L. Hirsh’s Funeral Home, and at least one was stripped from the attachment point to the building’s electrical system located on the structure. In addition to the funeral home, a number of other local buildings lost power as a result of the incident, although no structure other than Hirsh’s was connected directly to the downed pole. The issue this case presented for the Supreme Court's review, as framed by appellant, was “[w]hether the Superior Court erred in imposing upon electric utilities a burdensome and unprecedented duty to enter customers’ premises and inspect customers’ electrical facilities before restoring power after an outage” The Supreme Court affirmed the Superior Court, finding that Duquesne Light failed to adequately confront the common-law duties invoked by Hirsh or the warnings dynamic tempering the Superior Court’s ruling. The Superior Court did not err to the extent that it recognized a duty, on the part of an electric service provider, to take reasonable measures to avert harm in a scenario in which the utility has actual or constructive knowledge of a dangerous condition impacting a customer’s electrical system, occasioned by fallen and intermixed electrical lines proximate to the customer’s premises. The Court offered no opinion as to whether Duquesne Light had actual or constructive knowledge of an unreasonable risk in this scenario, since the electric company’s summary judgment effort was not staged in a manner which would have elicited an informed determination on such point. View "Alderwoods (PA), Inc. v. Duquesne Light" on Justia Law

In 2009, C.B. (an adult male), along with his fiancee K.M.H (“the victim”) and her two daughters, J.H. (age 7) and A.H (age 4), and C.B.’s 11-year-old son J.B. were living together in a two-story rented house in a rural area surrounded by farmland and woods, and situated near the town of Wampum. K.M.H. was found dead with a single shotgun wound to the head shortly after C.B. had left for work for and J.H. and C.B. had left for school. K.M.H. was pregnant at the time of her death. The focus of the police investigation turned from K.M.H.'s ex-boyfriend to J.B., when police found that the ballistics of the shotgun pellets found in the victim matched that found on the shotgun seized from the residence. It was determined that J.B. had learned how to shoot this gun for hunting, and that the clothes J.B. wore to school the morning of the shooting had trace gunshot residue on them. The juvenile court issued written findings of fact adjudicating J.B. delinquent of criminal homicide for the death of K.M.H. and of her unborn child. J.B. filed a notice of appeal from the dispositional order, following which the juvenile court directed J.B. to prepare and file a statement of matters complained of on appeal. The juvenile court did not find J.B.’s weight of the evidence claim waived due to his failure to file a post-dispositional motion. Instead, the juvenile court ruled that J.B.’s weight of the evidence claim had been “adequately addressed . . . in its Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law issued on April 13, 2012 and supplemental Opinion issued on April 20, 2012.” The Supreme Court found that J.B. faced procedural rules that made optional the filing of a post-dispositional motion, and which did not otherwise specify how a weight of the evidence claim was to be presented in the first instance to the juvenile court in order to preserve it for appellate review. Furthermore, J.B. presented his weight of the evidence claim to the lower court by raising it in his Pa.R.A.P. 1925(b) statement, in which he comprehensively set forth specific reasons why, in his view, the juvenile court’s adjudication was against the weight of the evidence. The Supreme Court concluded that a finding of J.B.’s weight of the evidence claim to be waived under the circumstances of this case would have been manifestly unjust. The Court remanded this case back to the juvenile court to allow J.B. to file a post-dispositional motion nunc pro tunc. View "In the Interest of J.B." on Justia Law

The Mt. Lebanon Police Officer's Pension Plan provided for cost-of-living adjustments ("COLAs") to augment pension benefits for retirees. For the Plan years 2000-03 ("2000 Plan") by the United Police Society of Mt. Lebanon ("Union") and the Municipality of Mt. Lebanon, retired plan participants were eligible for yearly COLAs of 2% of the participant's final average monthly compensation until such time as the participant's benefits reached 90% of his or her final average monthly compensation. This provision did not differentiate between regular retiree participants and early retiree participants. In 2004, the COLA was changed for some early retirees (specifically those with fewer than 20 years of service), to reduce the benefit from 2% of the retiree's final average monthly compensation to 2% of the actual early retirement benefits ("2004 Plan"). No adjustment was made in the Plan with respect to the COLA cap of 90% of the participant's final average monthly compensation for any participant. The issue this case presented for the Supreme Court's review centered on the change from the 2000 Plan to the 2004 Plan. The municipality submitted to an actuary making the statutorily-mandated cost study (required by Act 205 - The Municipal Pension Plan Funding Standard and Recovery Act) incomplete and/or inaccurate information (although the municipality disputed this characterization). Thereafter, the municipality administered the plan term along the lines of the incomplete or inaccurate assessment that resulted, in effect unilaterally modifying both the plan and the CBA. The Commonwealth Court here ultimately determined that because Act 205 has statutory primacy over any CBA, the plan must be administered as understood by the actuary when it made its Act 205 cost study, even if this effectively altered a bargained-for term of the parties. The Supreme Court reversed and remanded: Section 305(a) of Act 205 required a municipality to obtain a complete and accurate cost estimate before the municipality adopted any benefit plan modification so as to have accurate information with respect to the plan's solvency. At the same time, a municipal employer's unilateral change of a mandatory subject of bargaining, without first negotiating with the union, interferes with the employees' collective bargaining rights, and thus constitutes an unfair labor practice. Accordingly, the Court held that it was error to impose a unilateral change to the Plan at odds with its plain language based on the results of an incomplete and inaccurate Act 205 cost study. The Commonwealth Court was reversed and the case remanded to effectuate a complete and accurate Section 305 cost study. View "United Police Society of Mt. Lebanon v. Mt Lebanon Commission" on Justia Law