Crowell v. City of Philadelphia
| Decision Date | 17 June 1992 |
| Parties | Robert F. CROWELL, Administrator of the Estate of Marc Ethan Crowell, Deceased, and Robert F. Crowell and Linda Crowell as plaintiffs in their own right, Appellants, v. CITY OF PHILADELPHIA, Appellee, and Henry B. Lewis, Appellant, and Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and Robert F. Crowell, Henry Lewis, Additional Defendant, Appellees. |
| Court | Pennsylvania Supreme Court |
Mary Gay Scanlon, Lise Luborsky, Philadelphia, for appellant.
Lawrence L. Robinson, Philadelphia, for Robert F. Crowell, additional defendant.
Theodore J. Chylack, Sr. Deputy Atty. Gen., for amicus--Comm. Parties.
Daniel Sherzer, Deputy Atty. Gen., for Com.
Lawrence L. Robinson, Philadelphia, for Robert F. Crowell--additional defendant.
Charisse Lillie, City Sol., Alan C. Ostrow, Chief Asst. City Sol., for City of Philadelphia.
George F. Dale, Philadelphia, for Robert F. Crowell, et al.
Before NIX, C.J., and LARSEN, FLAHERTY, McDERMOTT, ZAPPALA, PAPADAKOS and CAPPY, JJ.
Appellants come to us by allowance from an order of the Commonwealth Court which, inter alia, entered judgments non obstante veredicto, in favor of the City of Philadelphia and against appellants, 131 Pa.Cmwlth. 418, 570 A.2d 626. The basis of the Commonwealth Court ruling was that the City was immune from suit under provisions of the Governmental Immunity Act, 1 42 Pa.C.S. § 8541 et seq.
The germane facts of this case are uncontested. On May 17, 1981, Robert F. Crowell, his wife Linda Crowell, and their three year old son, Marc Ethan Crowell, were travelling in their car. They were proceeding west on University Avenue, which is located in the western section of Philadelphia. Henry Lewis was also travelling in his car, but he was proceeding east on University Avenue. The respective lanes were separated by a low rise concrete medial strip.
The two cars approached a curve in the road. The curve turned to the right for eastbound traffic and to the left for westbound traffic. Facing Mr. Lewis' vehicle was a large directional arrow directing traffic to turn left. Unfortunately, the directional arrow was wrongly placed, for the road turned to the right. Mr. Lewis nonetheless followed the arrow, thereby crossing into the Crowell's lane of traffic, striking their vehicle, and causing injuries which eventually resulted in the death of Marc Ethan Crowell.
The Crowells subsequently brought survival and wrongful death actions against Henry Lewis and the City of Philadelphia. The causes of action against Henry Lewis were grounded in traditional tort law, whereas the causes of action against the City were brought under an exception to the Governmental Immunity Act, specifically the fourth exception which provides:
Acts which may impose liability.--The following acts by a local agency or any of its employees may result in the imposition of liability on a local agency.
....
(4) Trees, traffic controls and street lighting.--A dangerous condition of trees, traffic signs, lights or other traffic controls, street lights or street lighting systems under the care, custody or control of the local agency, except that the claimant to recover must establish that the dangerous condition created a reasonably foreseeable risk of the kind of injury which was incurred and that the local agency had actual notice or could reasonably be charged with notice under the circumstance of the dangerous condition at a sufficient time prior to the event to have taken measures to protect against the dangerous condition.
42 Pa.C.S. § 8542(b)(4).
At the time of the accident Mr. Lewis was legally intoxicated and ultimately pled guilty to driving while intoxicated. Despite this evidence of intoxication, there was ample evidence, which was believed by the jury, that the incorrectly placed directional sign was a substantial factor in causing the accident. The jury, ruling on the parties' multiple counts, returned a verdict in the aggregate amount of $1,650,000.00 in favor of the Crowells and against Mr. Lewis and the City of Philadelphia. The jury apportioned the comparative negligence of the defendants thusly: Henry B. Lewis 80%, City of Philadelphia 20%.
Following post-trial motions the trial judge, the Honorable Paul Ribner, denied the respective defendants' motions for judgment non obstante veredicto and, after molding the verdict to reflect the limitation of the Governmental Immunity Act, and adding delay damages, entered judgment for plaintiffs as follows: 1) against the City and in favor of Robert and Linda Crowell--$202,594.50; 2) against the City and in favor of the Estate of Marc Ethan Crowell--$311,655.50; 3) against Henry Lewis and in favor of Robert and Linda Crowell--$520,000.00; and 4) against Henry Lewis and in favor of the Estate of Marc Ethan Crowell--$800,000.00.
The defendants appealed these judgments and, as noted above, the Commonwealth Court reversed the judgments which had been entered against the City, and proceeded to enter judgment, non obstante veredicto, in favor of the City and against the Crowells.
Upon petition for review filed by the Crowells we granted allocatur, for the limited purpose of examining the Commonwealth Court's "interpretation of 42 Pa.C.S. § 8542(b)(4) in light of our decision in Mascaro v. Youth Study Center, 514 Pa. 351, 523 A.2d 1118 (1987)." 2 For the reasons set forth below, we now reverse that part of the order of the Commonwealth Court which granted the City relief.
In Mascaro this Court examined whether liability attached to the City under the real estate exception 3 to the Governmental Immunity Act in a situation where the defect in the City's real estate facilitated the ultimate injuries but the injuries did not occur on or near the real estate. The facts of Mascaro were that the plaintiff's family had been grievously injured by a person who had escaped from the City's Youth Study Center, a correctional facility. The injuries to the plaintiff's family occurred well away from City owned property.
We concluded that the City could not be sued under the real estate exception and held:
that the real estate exception can be applied only to those cases where it is alleged that the artificial condition or defect of the land itself causes the injury, not merely when it facilitates the injury by the acts of others, whose acts are outside the statute's scope of liability.
Id. at 363, 523 A.2d at 1124 (emphasis in original). In support of this holding we further stated:
We believe the Legislature has clearly precluded the imposition of liability on itself or its local agencies for acts of third parties by its language in § 8541, supra, and that it has not seen fit to waive immunity for these actors in their acts in any of the eight exceptions.
Id. These latter comments were based on the Court's interpretation of section 8541 of the Immunity Act which provides:
Except as otherwise provided in this subchapter, no local agency shall be liable for any damages on account of any injury to a person or property caused by any act of the local agency or an employee thereof or any other person.
42 Pa.C.S. § 8541 ().
In the present case the Commonwealth Court relied on the above quoted statutory language to conclude that the City cannot be liable for any injury caused jointly with another tortfeasor. This conclusion went far beyond that intended by Mascaro.
We begin our analysis by noting that the jury in this case found by its verdict that the City's action did not merely facilitate the injuries but was in fact a substantial contributing cause of them: the liability of the City here was found to be joint as opposed to merely vicarious. 4
Vicarious liability, sometimes referred to as imputed negligence, "means in its simplest form that, by reason of some relation existing between A and B, the negligence of A is to be charged against B although B has played no part in it, has done nothing whatever to aid or encourage it, or indeed has done all that he possibly can to prevent it." Prosser and Keeton on Torts (5th Ed.1984) § 69, p. 499. "The modern justification for vicarious liability is a rule of policy, a deliberate allocation of risk." Id. at p. 500.
Joint tortfeasor liability, on the other hand, arises when two or more persons acting together injure another. It is distinguished from vicarious liability in that liability attaches by virtue of the actions of each person as opposed to by operation of law. See Prosser and Keeton, supra § 52, p. 346.
In Mamalis v. Atlas Van Lines Inc., 522 Pa. 214, 560 A.2d 1380 (1989), we addressed the compensatory concept behind each theory of recovery, and adopted the following Superior Court explanation of the distinction:
The rules of vicarious liability respond to a specific need in the law of torts: how to fully compensate an injury caused by the act of a single tortfeasor. Upon a showing of agency, vicarious liability increases the likelihood that an injury will be compensated, by providing two funds from which a plaintiff may recover. If the ultimately responsible agent is unavailable or lacks the ability to pay, the innocent victim has recourse against the principal. If the agent is available or has means to pay, invocation of the doctrine is unnecessary because the injured party has a fund from which to recover.
The system of contribution among joint tortfeasors, of which the Uniform Act's 5 apportionment rules are a key component, has...
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