Signora v. Liberty Travel, Inc.

• Decision Date: 28 October 2005
• Parties: Nancy J. SIGNORA, Individually and on Behalf of A Class, Appellees v. LIBERTY TRAVEL, INC. and Barry S. Kaplan, Appellants Nancy J. SIGNORA, Individually and on Behalf of A Class, Appellants v. LIBERTY TRAVEL, INC. and Barry S. Kaplan, Appellees
• Court: Pennsylvania Superior Court

886 A.2d 284

2005 Pa. Super 366

Nancy J. SIGNORA, Individually and on Behalf of A Class, Appellees v. LIBERTY TRAVEL, INC. and Barry S. Kaplan, Appellants Nancy J. SIGNORA, Individually and on Behalf of A Class, Appellants v. LIBERTY TRAVEL, INC. and Barry S. Kaplan, Appellees

Superior Court of Pennsylvania.

Argued December 7, 2004.

Filed October 28, 2005.

Judith E. Harris, Philadelphia, for Liberty and Kaplan.

Mark A. Sereni, Media, for Signora.

Before: BOWES and McCAFFERY, JJ., and McEWEN, P.J.E.

OPINION BY McCAFFERY, J.:

¶ 1 We are asked in this appeal and cross-appeal to review a judgment entered upon a molded jury verdict which included an award of attorneys' fees. Appellant, Nancy J. Signora,¹ a former employee of Liberty Travel, Inc.,² worked as a travel consultant at Liberty's Springfield Mall location from late May 1993, through early February 1995. During her tenure, Signora complained to management about the amount of overtime pay she received, and Liberty subsequently terminated her employment on February 7, 1995. Shortly thereafter, Signora commenced the instant lawsuit, and the parties have been litigating literally ever since. Upon our thorough review of the record, the briefs and arguments of the parties, the trial court's comprehensive 44-page opinion, and the pertinent law, we affirm the judgment of the trial court in all respects.

¶ 2 This is at least the fourth occasion that this Court has been asked to review the propriety of actions taken by the Delaware County Court of Common Pleas in the course of this now decade-long litigation.³ We set forth here, once more, the relevant background of the matter as follows:

The procedural history of this matter is lengthy and complicated. It can be summarized in its most basic sense as follows. In 1995, Nancy Signora individually and on behalf of members of a class (Plaintiffs) filed an action against Liberty Travel, Inc. and Barry S. Kaplan (Defendants). The complaint made claims for wrongful discharge and for violations of the Pennsylvania Minimum Wage Act and the Pennsylvania Wage Payment and Collection Law. A default judgment was later obtained based upon Defendants' failure to respond. Defendants filed a Petition to Open the Default Judgment, which was denied. A subsequent Motion for Reconsideration alleged that Plaintiffs' counsel had agreed in writing to an extension of time for the filing of Defendants' Answer and that despite this agreement a default judgment was entered. After an evidentiary hearing was held on the matter, the trial court denied Defendants' motion. This court affirmed the court's order on appeal. Signora v. Liberty Travel, Inc., 718 A.2d 355 (Pa.Super.1998). Sometime later Defendants filed a Petition for Relief from Default Judgment. It was denied and Defendants' appeal of the matter was quashed with the court referring to the doctrine of res judicata and ruling that: "Appellants cannot now seek again to open the default judgment which was final in 1998." Signora v. Liberty, 298 EDA 2000, memorandum opinion at 4, 769 A.2d 1218 (Pa.Super. filed December 4, 2000). The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania later denied a petition of allowance of appeal.

Signora v. Liberty Travel, Inc., 846 A.2d 145, 146 (Pa.Super.2004) (footnote omitted) (emphasis supplied). Upon the denial of the petition for allowance of appeal by the Supreme Court on July 11, 2001, the case proceeded in the trial court on the issue of class certification. The trial court certified the class on June 19, 2002. A jury trial was held from July 21 through July 24, 2003, on the issue of damages due 1) to the class for violations of the Pennsylvania Minimum Wage Act and the Pennsylvania Wage Payment and Collection Law; and 2) to Signora individually on her wrongful termination claim. The jury returned a verdict in favor of the class, including Signora, for overtime pay in the amount of $269,834.94, and for interest thereon in the amount of $143,736.15 for a total of $413,571.09. The jury also returned a verdict in favor of Signora on her wrongful termination claim for compensatory damages for emotional distress, aggravation, and inconvenience in the amount of $100,000.00, and for embarrassment and humiliation in the amount of $27,479.49. The jury also awarded her punitive damages in the amount of $1000.00. Subsequently, following an evidentiary hearing and submission of documentary evidence by the parties, the trial court awarded class counsel attorneys' fees in the amount of $864,067.00. Following the filing and denial of post-trial motions, each of the parties filed notices of appeal and statements of matters complained of on appeal.⁴ On appeal at Docket No. 489 EDA 2004, Liberty presents the following five issues for our review:

1. WHETHER PENNSYLVANIA WOULD DETERMINE THE "REGULAR RATE" FOR PURPOSES OF CALCULATING "TIME AND A HALF" OVERTIME IN ACCORDANCE WITH FEDERAL LAW?

2. WHETHER THE TWO ORDERS OF DEFAULT ENTERED BELOW FOR FAILURE TO FILE RESPONSIVE PLEADINGS RESOLVED ISSUES OF LAW?

3. WHETHER THE 1998 DEFAULT IN FAVOR OF THE CLASS WAS PROPERLY ENTERED BASED SOLELY ON THE PRIOR DEFAULT, AND WHETHER THE LOWER COURT THEREFORE PROPERLY REFUSED TO GRANT RELIEF FROM THAT DEFAULT?

4. WHETHER PENNSYLVANIA WOULD RECOGNIZE A CAUSE OF ACTION FOR WRONGFUL TERMINATION IN THE CIRCUMSTANCES PRESENTED HERE?

5. WHETHER ON THE RECORD BELOW APPELLANT WAS ENTITLED TO ATTORNEYS' FEES, INCLUDING A CONTINGENCY MULTIPLIER, OF OVER $864,000.00?

(Cross-Appellants' Brief at 4).

¶ 3 We are in agreement with the trial court's combined treatment of the first four issues raised by Liberty, as they all pertain to the validity and effect of the default judgments which had been entered against Cross-Appellants. (See Trial Court Opinion at 6-9, 16.) Cross-Appellants are incorrect in their assessment of the preclusive effect of the prior rulings of this Court regarding their defenses on the merits to the individual and class-wide allegations against them. We conclude that proper application of issue preclusion principles pertinent to successive appeals in the same case requires rejection of Cross-Appellants' arguments.

¶ 4 The law of the case doctrine dictates that upon a second appeal, an appellate court may not alter the resolution of a legal question previously decided by the same appellate court. Commonwealth v. Wallace, 582 Pa. 234, 870 A.2d 838, 842 n. 2 (2005) (quoting Commonwealth v. Starr, 541 Pa. 564, 664 A.2d 1326, 1331 (1995)). "Under [the] law of the case doctrine, a court involved in the later phases of a litigated matter should not reopen questions decided by another judge of the same court or by a higher court in the earlier phases of the matter." Id., 870 A.2d at 842 n. 4 (quoting Riccio v. American Republic Ins. Co., 550 Pa. 254, 705 A.2d 422, 425 (1997)). In addition, a judgment by default is res judicata and is conclusive in its application to a defaulting defendant. Zimmer v. Zimmer, 457 Pa. 488, 326 A.2d 318, 320 (1974). As reiterated by our Supreme Court:

Once all direct appeals are exhausted from the entry of such a judgment, we long ago concluded that a judgment by default is res judicata and quite as conclusive as one rendered on a verdict after litigation insofar as a defaulting defendant is concerned.

Fox v. Gabler, 534 Pa. 185, 189, 626 A.2d 1141, 1143 (1993) (citing Zimmer, supra; Devlin v. Piechoski, 374 Pa. 639, 99 A.2d 346 (1953); Exler v. Wickes Brothers, 263 Pa. 150, 106 A. 233 (1919); Stradley v. Bath Portland Cement Company, 228 Pa. 108, 77 A. 242 (1910)).

¶ 5 The previous appellate rulings in the instant case determined the following matters conclusively: 1) that Cross-Appellants were not entitled to relief from the default judgment entered against them on July 28, 1995, see Signora v. Liberty Travel, Inc., 718 A.2d 355, No. 2370 PHL 1997 (Pa.Super. April 22, 1998);⁵ and 2) that Cross-Appellants were not entitled to relief from the class-wide default judgment entered against them by special order, pursuant to Pa.R.C.P. 1715, on January 22, 1999, see Signora v. Liberty Travel, Inc., No. 298 EDA 2000, 769 A.2d 1218 (Pa.Super. Dec. 4, 2000).⁶ ¶ 6 One might have anticipated that, in light of these holdings and the above-cited caselaw, Cross-Appellants would have ceased their efforts to avoid the effects of the default judgments which had been entered against them. Yet, despite having been told in 2000 by this Court that they "cannot now seek again to open the default judgment which was final in 1998," id. at 4, and having been so reminded of this holding again in 2004, see Signora v. Liberty Travel, Inc., 846 A.2d at 146, Cross-Appellants nevertheless are brazenly proceeding in this appeal to attempt to achieve precisely the same relief which they have consistently been denied since 1998. Their third issue raised in the instant appeal is a direct, frontal assault on the two default judgments, and it may be summarily dismissed as without merit on the basis of both res judicata and the law of the case.⁷ Liberty's bold assertion that "there is no precedent for treating a default judgment based solely upon a failure to answer as resolving issues that are purely questions of law"⁸ is particularly baffling in light of caselaw cited by the trial court in its opinion which supports this very proposition. Had Cross-Appellants perhaps reviewed with a keener eye the legal precedent relied upon by the trial court, their consternation on appeal would have been considerably lessened. The trial court cited Zimmer, Devlin, Exler, and Stradley, supra, all of which involved the entry of a default judgment upon a defendant's failure to take necessary action to challenge the allegations in a complaint and none of which involved entry of a default judgment as a sanction for a discovery violation.⁹

¶ 7 It is Liberty's spurious and unsound distinction between default judgments entered as a sanction for discovery violations and those entered for failure to respond¹⁰...