Morrison v. Com., Dept. of Public Welfare, Office of Mental Health (Woodville State Hosp.)

• Citation: 646 A.2d 565,538 Pa. 122
• Parties: Shirley A. MORRISON, Administratrix of the Estate of George Morrison, Deceased, v. COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC WELFARE, OFFICE OF MENTAL HEALTH (WOODVILLE STATE HOSPITAL), Schleifer Ambulance Service, and J.P. Harika, M.D. Appeal of SCHLEIFER AMBULANCE SERVICE.
• Decision Date: 25 August 1994
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Pennsylvania

Page 565

646 A.2d 565

538 Pa. 122

Shirley A. MORRISON, Administratrix of the Estate of George Morrison, Deceased, v. COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC WELFARE OFFICE OF MENTAL HEALTH (WOODVILLE STATE HOSPITAL), Schleifer Ambulance Service and J.P. Harika, M.D Appeal of SCHLEIFER AMBULANCE SERVICE.

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

Argued March 8, 1994.

Decided Aug. 25, 1994.

Louis C. Long, Daniel C. Lawson, Meyer, Darragh, Buckler, Bebenek & Eck, Pittsburgh, Esther Joy Schwartz, Chicago, IL, for appellant.

Samuel J. Cordes, Michael A. Murphy, Ogg, Jones, DeSimone & Ignelzi, Pittsburgh, for Shirley Morrison.

Robert S. Andrews, Jr., Deputy Atty. Gen., for Com., Dept. of Public Welfare, Office of Mental Health.

Before NIX, C.J., and FLAHERTY, ZAPPALA, PAPADAKOS, CAPPY, CASTILLE and MONTEMURO, JJ.

OPINION OF THE COURT

CAPPY, Justice.

Schleifer Ambulance Service appeals from an order of the Commonwealth Court reversing the order of the Court of Common Pleas granting Schleifer's motion for a new trial. We find that the Commonwealth Court applied an incorrect standard of review and erred in reversing the trial court's decision. Accordingly, we reverse the decision of the Commonwealth Court and reinstate the order of the Court of Common Pleas.

George Morrison, the husband of Appellee Shirley Morrison, was a mental health patient at Woodville State Hospital. On July 29, 1986, while Mr. Morrison was on a brief visit home, he began to hallucinate and became violent. Mrs. Morrison requested that her husband be returned to Woodville. The Office of Mental Health ("OMH") arranged for the local Chief of Police to transport Mr. Morrison from his home to the police station, and for Appellant Schleifer Ambulance Service ("Schleifer") to transport Mr. Morrison from the police station to Woodville. During Schleifer's transport, while the ambulance was crossing the Fort Pitt Bridge over the Monongahela River, Mr. Morrison escaped from the ambulance, ran to the railing at the side of the bridge, and fell over the railing to his death.

Mrs. Morrison filed wrongful death and survival actions against the defendants ¹ alleging that their negligence caused the death of her husband. With respect to Appellant Schleifer, she alleged that the ambulance service was negligent in failing to assess Mr. Morrison's condition; failing to restrain, control and monitor him; allowing him to escape from the ambulance; and failing to remain at the scene of the accident to assist the rescue squad.

Before trial, Schleifer filed a motion in limine to preclude Mrs. Morrison from introducing evidence that the ambulance crew failed to remain at the scene of the accident. Schleifer asserted that the attendants' leaving the scene did not affect their ability to assist Mr. Morrison, because they could have done nothing to help him after he fell. Schleifer argued that any probative value the evidence might have was outweighed by its prejudicial effect, as the evidence would serve only to inflame the jury and evoke sympathy against Schleifer. Mrs. Morrison argued, to the contrary, that the evidence of abandonment was admissible because it was probative of the ambulance crew's lack of proper training and showed a continuous course of negligent conduct. The trial court denied the motion in limine.

At trial, Mrs. Morrison called several witnesses, including the ambulance attendant, Bernard J. Jozwiak, and the ambulance driver, John C. Fritzius. The two men testified regarding the extent of their training in transporting mental health patients, described their pick-up and transport of Mr. Morrison, and recounted the accident and their activities after it happened. They testified that Mr. Morrison had been sitting in the back of the ambulance with Mr. Jozwiak. While Mr. Jozwiak was distracted, enjoying the view from the Fort Pitt Bridge, Mr. Morrison climbed into the front passenger seat and escaped through the passenger side door. Mr. Jozwiak followed Mr. Morrison through that door and chased him, but Mr. Morrison ran over to the railing and fell off of the bridge. The ambulance crew "heard a thud" (Testimony of Bernard J. Jozwiak, Reproduced Record at 80a) and ran to the railing. They could not see Mr. Morrison, but they did see a boat in the river with a couple of fishermen on board. Fritzius and Jozwiak tried to signal to the men on the boat, but the men apparently thought they were merely waving in greeting and did not stop. Because there was nowhere to stop on the bridge, no telephone was available before the tunnel, and the ambulance was not equipped with a two-way radio, the crew decided to return to the ambulance and drive through the tunnel to a garage at the end of the tunnel. With the help of a mechanic there, Fritzius called "911" and reported the accident to an operator who said "okay, we'll take over." (Testimony of John C. Fritzius, R.R. at 179a.) Jozwiak then called their employer, Theodore J. Schleifer, who instructed the crew to return to the base. After returning to the base, the crew transported another patient who had been scheduled for dialysis that afternoon. Later that day Schleifer, Fritzius and Jozwiak went to the police station to complete a report.

Mrs. Morrison also presented the testimony of William Fike, an electrician who had been working on a temporary dock with a view of the bridge when the accident occurred. Mr. Fike testified that from the corner of his eye he saw an object fall, and then he heard a thud as the object hit the edge of the dock and a splash as it hit the water. He looked up and saw the ambulance on the bridge and the two crew members looking over the railing. Mr. Fike stayed on the dock for approximately fifteen minutes, but did not see anything float to the surface of the water.

Both parties presented expert testimony regarding local and national standards of care. The experts' opinions conflicted as to whether the ambulance crew had been properly trained, had properly assessed Mr. Morrison before transporting him, and had properly transported him, as well as whether they had violated the standard of care by leaving the scene of the accident.

Schleifer presented the videotaped deposition testimony of Dr. Paul M. Paris, who testified that Mr. Morrison had died as the result of a forceful blow to the head, which knocked him unconscious, followed by drowning. Dr. Paris stated that it was "extraordinarily unlikely" (R.R. at 1244a) that Mr. Morrison would have survived, even if the river rescue squad had been able to reach him in a matter of seconds.

The court's instructions to the jury at the close of the evidence included the following statement:

Now, then, there's also a sharp conflict about the conduct of the two attendants in this vehicle in not having one or more of them remain at the scene so that when the river patrol would show up they could point to where the deceased went down into the water, or he fell from the bridge or jumped from the bridge, whichever it would be.... Of course, if you were to determine that it wouldn't have saved the deceased's life, in other words, that it wouldn't have done any good for the ambulance driver to remain if in fact he died from the blow on the head so quickly, then, of course, their failure to remain, whether right or wrong, wouldn't have anything to do with his death.

(R.R. at 931a.) The jury returned a verdict for Mrs. Morrison, finding 75% of the causal negligence attributable to Schleifer, 25% attributable to OMH, and none attributable to Mr. Morrison. The jury awarded $450,000 in damages.

The trial court granted Schleifer's motion for a new trial, finding that it had committed "very serious trial error" in permitting evidence and argument regarding the ambulance crew's conduct following the accident. The court noted that the ambulance crew had decided to drive through the tunnel to telephone for help because they could not have gotten down to the dock to help Mr. Morrison. The court also noted that no evidence had been presented that Mr. Morrison could have survived his fall, and that the evidence that was presented indicated the contrary. The court went on to state:

Nevertheless, the conduct of Schleifer which was most forcefully and repeatedly condemned by both counsel and witnesses for the Plaintiff was returning to their workplace and at a later hour handling a dialysis case which had been scheduled for the same day....

The owner of Schleifer was castigated in the strongest terms for not instructing his men to go back to the bridge so that any rescue squad would be told where to look for Morrison. The argument even suggested that he might be found alive despite the admissions and evidence to the contrary. Permitting this despite numerous objections, beginning with a motion in limine, was a very serious trial error. The action of Schleifer in this respect was presented as cold and callous indifference to life and it probably was ill advised from the viewpoint of conventional opinion, but it did not contribute to the death of Morrison. The error in permitting the representation of the contrary requires a new trial.

(Trial Court Opinion at 5.) Although the court referred to a second issue raised by Schleifer, ² the court found resolution of that issue to be unnecessary because the admission of the abandonment evidence alone was a sufficient basis for granting a new trial. (Id. at 6.)

On appeal, a panel of the Commonwealth Court reversed in a 2-1 decision. Morrison v. Commonwealth, Dept. of Public Welfare, 148 Pa.Commw.Ct. 245, 610 A.2d 1082 (1992). The majority disagreed with Schleifer's characterization of the issue on appeal as being whether the trial court abused its discretion in granting a new trial, where the basis of that decision was the trial court's discretionary ruling that the abandonment evidence should have been excluded. Instead, the court framed the issue as "whether the reason the trial court gave...