Beardell v. Western Wayne School Dist.
| Citation | 496 A.2d 1373,91 Pa.Cmwlth. 348 |
| Parties | , 27 Ed. Law Rep. 223 Louis BEARDELL, Jr., Louis Beardell, Sr. and Jane Beardell, Appellants, v. WESTERN WAYNE SCHOOL DISTRICT, Wayco, Inc., Sugerman's Inc., Wilson & Co., Ada Metal Products and Passon's Sporting Goods, Inc., Appellees. 118 C.D. 1984 |
| Decision Date | 23 August 1985 |
| Court | Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania |
John T. McLane, Thomas J. Foley, Jr., and Associates, P.C., Scranton, for appellants.
Randolph T. Borden, Hawley, Richard G. Fine, Anthony J. Piazza, Jr., Cody H. Brooks, John Q. Durkin, William J. Dempsey, James W. Scanlon, Scranton, Thomas J. Newell, Hawley, for appellees.
Before ROGERS and COLINS, JJ., and BLATT, Senior Judge.
Louis Beardell, Jr., Louis Beardell, Sr. and Jane Beardell (appellants) appeal here from an order of the Court of Common Pleas of Wayne County granting a motion for summary judgment on behalf of Western Wayne School District (district).
The appellants filed a complaint alleging that Louis Beardell, Jr. suffered severe bodily injury when he slid into second base during a baseball game played against the district's high school baseball team on a field owned by the district. They further averred in their complaint that Louis Beardell, Jr., as a member of the Dunmore High School baseball team, was participating in this sporting event at the invitation of the district, was "using" the base for its intended purpose, and was unaware of the dangers which might result to him because of the manner in which the base was attached to the playing field. The appellants also contended that the injuries suffered by Louis Beardell, Jr. directly resulted from the negligence of the district. In particular, the complaint states, at paragraph thirty-five that
(a) [The district] failed to exercise reasonable care in installing or supervising the installation of the base and plate or in inspecting subsequent to installation the base and plate;
(b) [The district] failed to exercise reasonable care to provide a safe place for the conducting of a baseball game;
(c) [The district] failed to exercise reasonable care in failing to provide adequate warning about or the safeguards to the risks and dangers in the use of the base and plate; [and]
(d) [The district] failed to exercise reasonable care in such other manner as may be discovered during the course of discovery.
In its answer, the district denied all of the allegations of negligence and raised, by way of new matter, the defense of governmental immunity as codified in 42 Pa.C.S. §§ 8541-8542. In the appellants' reply to the new matter, they stated that it was a legal conclusion requiring no responsive pleading and, in the alternative, they contended that the district's immunity had been waived because the injury resulted from the district's negligence in the care, custody and control of its real property. See 42 Pa.C.S. § 8542(a) and (b)(3).
Following the closing of the pleadings, but before discovery had commenced, the district filed a motion for summary judgment. The appellants opposed that motion, arguing that the motion was actually a motion for judgment on the pleadings and, as such, should be dismissed, that, in any case, the complaint stated a cause of action and that, if the court found the complaint insufficient, leave to amend should be granted.
The trial court granted the district's motion for summary judgment, reasoning that such a motion could be granted on the basis of the pleadings alone if, as here, no genuine issue of fact existed. Additionally, the trial court held that the district was entitled to judgment as a matter of law because the statutory exception to immunity relied upon by the appellants involved realty and, regardless of how the base was attached to the playing field, it would remain personalty. Relying on Wimbish v. School District of Penn Hills, 59 Pa. Commonwealth Ct. 620, 430 A.2d 710 (1981), the trial court also denied the appellants' request for leave to amend, stating that it could not conceive of any amendment to the complaint which would raise a factual issue or bring the appellants' cause of action within an exception to governmental immunity. The present appeal ensued.
The appellants argue preliminarily that the trial court erred in granting summary judgment where, as here, the motion is not supported by depositions, interrogatories or affidavits. See Pa.R.C.P. 1035. They contend that the trial court could only have granted judgment on the pleadings at this stage of the litigation. And, while they do concede in their brief that summary judgment has been granted on the basis of the pleadings alone in Mallesky v. Stevens, 427 Pa. 352, 235 A.2d 154 (1967), they argue that such a practice enables the moving party to avoid discovery of facts known only to that party.
We can not agree, however, with either the appellants' or the trial court's assessment of Mallesky. Our reading of Mallesky indicates that one of the defendants there filed a motion for summary judgment after taking depositions and that the trial court granted summary judgment on the basis of the deposition of the plaintiff and not on the basis of the pleadings alone. Moreover, in comparing a motion for summary judgment with a motion for judgment on the pleadings, Goodrich-Amram 2d § 1035(a):3 provides that
[t]he motion for judgment on the pleadings was created to permit an overall examination of pleadings in the action, on application of any party, after the pleadings are closed, to determine whether judgment should be entered upon the pleadings prior to trial ... [while] ... [t]he motion for summary judgment is designed to supplement the motion for judgment on the pleadings to provide for an equivalent summary disposition of the case where the pleadings may be sufficient, on their face, to withstand a demurrer but where, in actuality, there is no genuine issue of fact and this can be conclusively shown through depositions, answers to interrogatories, admissions or affidavits.
Thus, while it is true that both motions are means by which a case may be summarily dismissed before trial on the basis that there exists no genuine issue of fact and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law, compare Wimbish v. School District of Penn Hills, 59 Pa. Commonwealth Ct. 620, 623, 430 A.2d 710, 711 (1981) and Bersani v. School District of Philadelphia, 310 Pa. Superior Ct. 1, 6, 456 A.2d 151, 154 (1982), it is clear that such a motion made at the close of the pleadings and supported only by the pleadings is more correctly labeled a motion for judgment on the pleadings rather than one for summary judgment.
We do not believe, however, that the district's failure to move for a judgment on the pleadings here, rather than summary judgment, is fatal inasmuch as the legal standards governing the granting of either motion are similar. We will, therefore, examine the trial court's order as if it had granted a...
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...no genuine issue of material fact and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Beardell v. Western Wayne School Dist., 91 Pa.Commonwealth Ct. 348, 496 A.2d 1373 (1985). Further, when reviewing a trial court's grant of summary judgment, this Court must view the evidence i......
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