Zauflik v. Pennsbury Sch. Dist.

• Decision Date: 19 November 2014
• Docket Number: No. 1 MAP 2014,1 MAP 2014
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court
• Parties: Ashley ZAUFLIK, Appellant, v. PENNSBURY SCHOOL DISTRICT, Appellee.

104 A.3d 1096

Ashley ZAUFLIK, Appellant

v.PENNSBURY SCHOOL DISTRICT, Appellee.

No. 1 MAP 2014

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

Argued May 6, 2014.

Decided Nov. 19, 2014.

Elise Michelle Bruhl, Esq., George M. Janocsko, Esq., Lourdes M. Ridge, Esq., John Fitzgerald Doherty, Esq., City of Pittsburgh Law Department, Shelley Roxanne Smith, Esq., City of Philadelphia Law Department, Andrew Francis Szefi, Esq., Allegheny County Law Department, for City of Philadelphia, City of Pittsburgh, Allegheny County, amicus curiae.

Kathleen Granahan Kane, Esq., John G. Knorr III, Esq., PA Office of Attorney General, James David Schultz, Esq., PA Governor's Office of General Counsel, for Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, amicus curiae.

Louis C. Long, Esq., for American Inc. Assoc., Property Casualty Ins. Assoc. America, Ins. Federation of PA, et al., amicus curiae.

Charles Lyman Becker, Esq., David John Caputo, Esq., Kline & Specter, P.C., Philadelphia, William L. Goldman, Esq., Law Offices of William L. Goldman, P.C., Doylestown, Thomas R. Kline, Esq., for Ashley Zauflik.

Frank P. Murphy, Esq., Norristown, for Pennsylvania Association for Justice, amicus curiae.

Sol H. Weiss, Esq., Anapol Schwartz, Philadelphia, for American Association for Justice, amicus curiae.

Jared Dimock Bayer, Esq., Stephen A. Cozen, Esq., Thomas G. Wilkinson Jr., Esq., Cozen & O'Connor, Philadelphia, for Pennsbury School District.

Geoffrey L. Beauchamp, Esq., for Delaware Valley Insurance Trust, amicus curiae.

Casey Alan Coyle, Esq., Timothy James Nieman, Esq., Robert J. Tribeck, Esq., Rhoads & Sinon LLP, Harrisburg, for County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania, et al.,amicus curiae.

Michael George Crotty, Esq., Stephen V. Siana, Esq., Siana, Bellwoar & McAndrew, L.L.P., Chester Springs, for Pennsylvania Intergovernmental Risk Management Association, amicus curiae.

Robert J. Fitzgerald, Esq., Robert Samuel Hawkins, Paul C. Madden, Esq., Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney, P.C., Philadelphia, for Pennsylvania Public Transportation Association, et al., amicus curiae.

T. James Massey, Esq., P. Lee Reno, Esq., for Housing Authority Risk Retention Group, amicus curiae.

Jill Elaine Nagy, Esq., Reading, Sean Eric Summers, Esq., Summers Nagy Law Offices, for Indiana County Transit Authority, Crawford Area Transportation Authority (“CATA”) and Indiana County Transit Authority (“IndiGO”), amicus curiae.

CASTILLE, C.J., SAYLOR, EAKIN, BAER, TODD, McCAFFERY, STEVENS, JJ.

OPINION

Chief Justice CASTILLE.

Appellant Ashley Zauflik sustained severe and permanent injuries, including a crushed pelvis and the amputation of her left leg above the knee, when a school bus owned by, and operated by an employee of, appellee Pennsbury School District (“Pennsbury”) accelerated out of control onto a sidewalk and struck twenty students. The issue presented does not concern liability. Rather, the appeal presents a legal challenge to the constitutionality of the $500,000 statutory limit available in tort from a local agency such as Pennsbury. The lower courts, consistently with governing law from this Court, denied the challenges to the damages cap. We are now asked to reconsider our prior decisions, in light of a series of constitutional arguments forwarded by appellant. After due consideration of those claims, we affirm.

I. Background

Appellant filed this negligence action against Pennsbury and other defendants; only Pennsbury remained at time of trial, and only Pennsbury is involved in this appeal.¹ In a pretrial stipulation, Pennsbury admitted liability and that its employee bus driver caused the accident. At the time of the accident, Pennsbury had $11 million in liability and excess insurance coverage. But, Pennsbury maintained that its liability was limited to $500,000, the statutory limit on damages recoverable against a local government agency under the Tort Claims Act, 42 Pa.C.S. §§ 8501 –8564 (the “Act”).² Under Section 8501 of the Act, a “local agency” is defined as a government unit other than the Commonwealth government and includes “an intermediate unit” and “municipalities cooperating in the exercise or performance of governmental functions, powers or responsibilities....” There is no dispute that the definition of “local agency” includes a public school district such as Pennsbury.

Section 8541 of the Act declares generally that “no local agency shall be liable for any damages” for an injury caused by the agency or its employees, but Section 8542 of the Act describes exceptions to that immunity under certain circumstances, including liability for damages arising out of the negligent operation of a motor vehicle, which exception applies in this case. 42 Pa.C.S. §§ 8541 –42.³ However, the Act also includes a statutory limitation on the amount of damages recoverable in cases where governmental immunity is waived under Section 8542. This “statutory cap” or “damages cap” is codified at Section 8553 of the Act: “Damages arising from the same cause of action or transaction or occurrence or series of causes of action or transactions or occurrences shall not exceed $500,000 in the aggregate.” Id. § 8553(b).⁴

Based on this statutory limit on the damages recoverable by appellant in a tort action against Pennsbury, Pennsbury filed a petition to pay the entire $500,000 into court and forego trial, but appellant opposed the request, and the matter proceeded to trial on damages only. Following a four-day trial, the jury returned a verdict against Pennsbury in the amount of $14,036,263.39, which included $338,580 for past medical expenses, $2,597,682 for future medical expenses, and $11.1 million for past and future pain and suffering. Pennsbury filed a post-trial motion to mold the verdict to $500,000, pursuant to the Act's damages cap. In response to Pennsbury's motion, appellant argued that the statutory damages cap is unconstitutional on several grounds, but the trial court, while opining that the circumstances of the case directed “an unfair and unjust result,” followed precedent upholding the damages cap as constitutional, molded the verdict, and entered judgment for $502,661.63, which amount included delay damages.

A divided three judge panel of the Commonwealth Court affirmed. Zauflik v. Pennsbury School Dist., 72 A.3d 773 (Pa.Cmwlth.2013). In a majority opinion by Judge Cohn Jubelirer, and joined by President Judge Pellegrini, the court rejected all of appellant's constitutional challenges.⁵ Based on stare decisis, and specifically on this Court's decisions in Carroll v. County of York, 496 Pa. 363, 437 A.2d 394 (1981), and Smith v. City of Philadelphia, 512 Pa. 129, 516 A.2d 306 (1986), the court held that the Act's damages cap does not violate the “remedies clause” of Article I, Section 11 of the Pennsylvania Constitution.⁶ 72 A.3d at 784–85. The court further held that the statutory cap does not violate Article III, Section 18,⁷ relying again on this Court's precedential decision in Smith. Id. at 785. The court also rejected appellant's claims that the damages cap violates the separation of powers by impairing the authority of the Commonwealth's judiciary under Article V, Section 1 of the Constitution, that the cap violates the Article I, Section 6 right to a jury trial by forcing a remittitur of the jury's verdict, and also appellant's arguments that the damages cap violates the equal protection guarantees of the Pennsylvania and U.S. Constitutions. Id. at 785–96. The court explained that, although the “very tragic circumstances of this case weigh heavily ... [,] as an intermediate appellate court confronting significant and unwavering precedent, our role must be one of restraint. In sum, whether the existence of the excess policy or a different governmental interest could be a factor that changes the balance of interests in the constitutional analysis in this case is intriguing, and perhaps appealing, it is not within this Court's purview.” Id. at 796. The court concluded that it is the role of the General Assembly “to make the difficult policy decisions and enact them into law if such decisions receive the support of the necessary majority,” and thus affirmed the trial court's order molding the jury verdict to reflect the Act's $500,000 damages cap. Id. at 797–98. Senior Judge Friedman filed a dissenting opinion on the basis that, in her view, the damages cap violates appellant's constitutional right to a jury trial. Id. at 798–99. Appellant filed a petition for allowance of appeal.

II. Issues on Appeal

This Court granted allocatur on the following issues as framed by appellant:

(1) Does the Act's liability cap violate equal protection principles in this case where (a) the cap reduced the jury's verdict by over 96% because [appellant] was injured by a local agency [that] operated the school bus; (b) [appellant] would be entitled to recover the jury's full verdict had a private entity instead operated the school bus, as in [sic] commonplace among school districts; and (c) as this Court held forty years ago, political subdivision immunity is “an anachronism, without rational basis” because local agencies may purchase liability insurance and tort liability promotes accountability and accident-prevention? See Ayala v. Philadelphia Board of Public Educ., 453 Pa. 584, 305 A.2d 877, 881–83 (1973).

(2) Does the Act's liability cap violate equal protection principles in this case where (a) Pennsbury purchased $11 million in insurance, funded by taxpayers, including [appellant's] parents; (b) [appellant] could recover her judgment at least to the extent of the available insurance; and (c) the Commonwealth Court's majority opinion acknowledged that the available insurance presented “intriguing, and perhaps appealing” issues regarding the Act's constitutionality?

(3) Does the liability cap violate [appellant's] right to jury trial guaranteed by Article I, Section 6 of the Pennsylvania constitution where Pennsbury did not challenge the verdict's excessiveness yet the liability cap eviscerated the verdict by

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