OTTAVIANO v. SEPTA

361 A.2d 810, 239 Pa. Super. 363
CourtSuperior Court of Pennsylvania
DecidedMarch 29, 1976
StatusPublished
Cited by10 cases

This text of 361 A.2d 810 (OTTAVIANO v. SEPTA) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Superior Court of Pennsylvania primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
OTTAVIANO v. SEPTA, 361 A.2d 810, 239 Pa. Super. 363 (Pa. Ct. App. 1976).

Opinion

239 Pa. Superior Ct. 363 (1976)

Ottaviano, Appellant, et al.
v.
Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority et al.

Superior Court of Pennsylvania.

Argued September 8, 1975.
March 29, 1976.

*364 Before WATKINS, P.J., JACOBS, HOFFMAN, CERCONE, PRICE, VAN DER VOORT, and SPAETH, JJ.

Sidney E. Herold, with him Paul N. Sandler and Thomas J. Ingersoll, for appellant.

James Ciamaichelo, with him Joseph F. Keener, Jr., and Norman Hegge, Jr., for appellee.

*365 OPINION BY JACOBS, J., March 29, 1976:

We are here concerned with an award of arbitration in favor of Joseph Zangari, one of two joint plaintiffs, and against Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) and appellant, both as joint plaintiff and additional defendant. On appellant's appeal from arbitration, the court below granted summary judgment in favor of SEPTA. We find this ruling proper and affirm.

On December 23, 1968, an accident occurred in the City of Philadelphia involving a car driven by appellant, Joseph Ottaviano, in which Joseph Zangari was a passenger, and a SEPTA bus. Both Ottaviano and Zangari, represented by the same attorney, brought suit against SEPTA, which joined Ottaviano as additional defendant.[1] In his two capacities, as co-plaintiff and defendant, Ottaviano was represented by separate counsel.[2] The case was assigned to arbitration[3] and on November 28, 1973, the arbitrators filed their report and award in favor of plaintiff Zangari in the amount of $900.00 against both defendant SEPTA and additional defendant Ottaviano, and in favor of SEPTA in the claim of Ottaviano as plaintiff. On December 19, 1973, the attorney who represented Ottaviano as plaintiff filed an appeal in which the following language appeared: *366 "Kindly enter appeal on behalf of plaintiff, Joseph Ottaviano only, from the Award of Arbitrators filed November 28, 1973 . . . ." No other appeals were filed. On February 27, 1974, an order was filed of record, again by plaintiffs' attorney, marking the award of arbitrators satisfied as to Joseph Zangari only.

Ottaviano's appeal was listed for a trial de novo before the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas. Defendant SEPTA moved for summary judgment asserting that Ottaviano was appealing in his capacity as plaintiff only and consequently the judgment against him as additional defendant was final. This final judgment, defendant contends, determined the issue of appellant Ottaviano's negligence and he is therefore estopped from proceeding with any further action for damages based on the same cause of action. The court below agreed with this position and entered an order granting the motion for summary judgment based on the principles of collateral estoppel and the finality of unappealed arbitration awards. Appeal to this Court was taken from the lower court's order.

Appellant, as a party to the arbitration, has a statutory right to appeal from the award of arbitrators and is entitled to a trial de novo. Act of June 16, 1836, P.L. 715, § 27, as amended, 5 P.S. § 71.[4] It is appellant's view that the failure of the counsel representing appellant as defendant to bring an appeal should not operate to deprive him of his right. Since the identity of appellant as both co-plaintiff and additional defendant is apparent, appellant contends that his appeal in one capacity would necessarily involve an appeal in the other. As authority for this argument, reliance is placed on Washik v. Chase, 231 Pa. Superior Ct. 378, 332 A.2d 481 (1974). Washik is actually one of the more recent *367 statements of this Court in a long line of opinions concerning appeals from arbitration awards.[5] All these decisions reflect different aspects of the same issue: When only one of multiple parties to an arbitration appeals, which of the unappealing parties are also carried up for review? From a review of the cases it appears that such an appeal includes those who the appellant intends to include or whose participation is required to resolve the issues raised by the appeal, absent some clear indication by the appellant to the contrary.

The seminal case in the series is Klugman v. Gimbel Bros., Inc., 198 Pa. Superior Ct. 268, 182 A.2d 223, allocatur refused, 198 Pa. Superior Ct. xxix (1962). There an additional defendant was held liable over to the original defendant for plaintiff's injuries. The additional defendant alone appealed the judgment against him in favor of the original defendant. After the statutory appeal period had passed the plaintiff had judgment entered against the original defendant. This Court approved the entry of judgment holding that the award of the arbitrators against the original defendant was final because the original defendant was not made a party appellant in the additional defendant's appeal and could not benefit therefrom. As stated by Judge FLOOD *368 in Klugman: "It may be that [additional defendant] has an appealable interest as to the plaintiff's award . . . . But this did not make [original defendant] whose rights and liabilities were distinct and different from those of [additional defendant], a party appellant in that appeal, as to which it was already an appellee, and no order could be entered on that appeal affecting the rights of the plaintiff and [original defendant] inter se." Klugman v. Gimbel Bros., Inc., supra at 276, 182 A.2d at 227.

The cases of Portock v. Philadelphia Transp. Co., 203 Pa. Superior Ct. 385, 198 A.2d 617 (1964) and Hammerman v. Lee, 207 Pa. Superior Ct. 370, 217 A.2d 853 (1966) followed Klugman and distinguished it. In Portock, the plaintiff obtained a judgment against one of two joint defendants. The losing defendant appealed both the award in favor of the plaintiff and that in favor of the other defendant. Klugman was not applied in this case to permit the winning defendant to enter judgment on its award where the appellant had clearly expressed the intent to have all the arbitrators' awards reviewed in a trial de novo. Again speaking for the Court in Portock, Judge FLOOD stated: "This means that the parties shall be the same as they were in the original case and that the case shall be tried afresh by the court." Portock v. Philadelphia Transp. Co., supra at 388, 198 A.2d at 619. The same result was reached in Hammerman v. Lee, supra. There the arbitrators found in favor of the plaintiff against one of two original defendants and against the additional defendant, jointly and severally. The losing original defendant alone appealed from the report and award containing all the arbitrators' decisions. This Court held that the entire matter, all parties included, was brought up on appeal for a trial de novo. It was pointed out that the losing defendant and additional defendant filed an affidavit stating it was their intention that the appeal would be effective for both, and they both paid for half the costs of appeal. Furthermore, the appellant stated it was appealing from *369

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Bluebook (online)
361 A.2d 810, 239 Pa. Super. 363, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/ottaviano-v-septa-pasuperct-1976.