HARRISBURG – In a ruling which could have far-reaching repercussions for tort cases statewide, a panel of judges from the Superior Court of Pennsylvania recently ruled that the Fair Share Act applies to possibly reduce exposure to joint and several liability, only when a plaintiff contributes to their own injuries.
On March 18, Superior Court judges Jack A. Panella, Maria McLaughlin and Daniel D. McCaffery handed down the key ruling in the case of Spencer v. Johnson Et.Al. Panella authored the Court’s ruling in this matter.
In Spencer v. Johnson Et.Al, a vehicle struck plaintiff Keith Spencer while he was legally crossing the street as a pedestrian in Philadelphia, on Oct. 16, 2014. When the accident occurred, the driver, Cleveland Johnson, was behind the wheel of his wife’s car, a company vehicle which her employer, the Philadelphia Joint Board Workers United SEIU, had provided for her use. Spencer suffered permanent injuries in the crash.
During trial, the parties concurred Spencer had not been comparatively negligent and that Johnson negligently operated his wife’s work vehicle when he struck Spencer.
However, where the parties disagreed was on whether the driver’s wife, co-defendant Tina Gainer Johnson, was also negligent in allowing her husband to drive her work vehicle, and whether the PJB was also negligent under the theories of agency and vicarious liability, through failing to maintain reasonable policies and regulations for the vehicles it provides to its employees.
In its verdict, the jury awarded $12,983,311.47 ($683,311.47 for past medical expenses, $7,300,000 for future medical expenses and $5,000,000 for non-economic damages), and determined liability for Spencer’s injuries among all three defendants: Driver Cleveland Johnson at 36 percent, wife Tina Johnson at 19 percent and PJB at 45 percent.
But, Spencer’s counsel countered that PJB was vicariously liable for the conduct of the Tina Johnson, and that her 19 percent share of liability should be combined with PJB’s 45 percent share of liability – resulting in PJB carrying 64 percent, or nearly two-thirds, of the jury verdict award.
Had that been successful, Spencer would have been able to lay the responsibility for the entire award at the doorstep of PJB, as Pennsylvania’s Fair Share Act dictates that if a party’s liability is greater than 60 percent, they can be held accountable/jointly and severally liable for an entire verdict award.
However, the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas refused to make such a move, instead keeping PJB’s liability share to only 45 percent.
This tenet of the ruling led Spencer to appeal to the Superior Court, which found in his favor and reversed the trial court’s ruling – ruling that Spencer provided sufficient evidence for Tina Johnson and PJB’s shares of liability to be combined.
According to the Superior Court panel, PJB was in fact jointly and severally liable because, in its view, the Fair Share Act was inapplicable to a case such as this, where the plaintiff was not in any way negligent, and because PJB’s vicarious liability is grounds to combine its percentage of liability along with Tina Johnson’s, giving PJB a combined 64 percent share of liability in this case and exceeding the Fair Share Act’s threshold.
Panella indicated that the legislative intent of the Fair Share Act was not to upend the concept of joint and several liability as a whole.
“There is no indication the legislature intended to make universal changes to the concept of joint and several liability outside of cases where a plaintiff has been found to be contributorily negligent,” Panella said.
“The subsequent enactment of the Fair Share Act does not alter our conclusion. As noted, the ‘general rule’ of the Fair Share Act continues to be focused on cases where a plaintiff is found to have negligently contributed to her own injuries. The addition of subsection does not clearly or explicitly expand the scope of the Fair Share to include cases where the plaintiff has not been found to be contributorily negligent. Therefore, for the Fair Share Act to apply, the plaintiff’s negligence must be an issue in the case.”
In the absence of such contributory negligence, the Superior Court ruled that joint and several liability applies and a plaintiff may recover the entire damages award from only one of the joint tortfeasors, regardless of that party’s percentage of fault.
Therefore, each defendant – Cleveland Johnson, Tina Johnson and PJB – was jointly and severally liable for the entire award, such that the plaintiff could collect the entire judgment from any one of the defendants.
Among the ruling’s likely implications would be not only many Pennsylvania businesses revising their policies on employees’ use of company-provided resources, but also to strictly reserve the Fair Share Act’s application to cases where a plaintiff was contributorily negligent for their own injuries and damages.
A pending application for re-argument in the case was filed on April 1
Superior Court of Pennsylvania case 2011 EDA 2019
From the Pennsylvania Record: Reach Courts Reporter Nicholas Malfitano at nick.malfitano@therecordinc.com