Reilly v. Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority

489 A.2d 1291, 507 Pa. 204, 1985 Pa. LEXIS 308
CourtSupreme Court of Pennsylvania
DecidedMarch 27, 1985
Docket146 E.D. Appeal Docket 1984
StatusPublished
Cited by420 cases

This text of 489 A.2d 1291 (Reilly v. Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Pennsylvania primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Reilly v. Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, 489 A.2d 1291, 507 Pa. 204, 1985 Pa. LEXIS 308 (Pa. 1985).

Opinions

OPINION OF THE COURT

PAPADAKOS, Justice.

Gerald J. Reilly, a minor, was a passenger on a SEPTA bus on February 20, 1978. The bus had stopped at the corner of West Baltimore Avenue and Runnemede Street, Lansdowne, Delaware County, Pennsylvania, for him to exit with two friends. While the bus waited, Gerald walked in front of the bus to cross West Baltimore Avenue and was hit by an automobile passing the bus on the bus driver’s side. As a result of the accident, Gerald sustained widespread and permanent injuries which have rendered him a quadraplegic. On January 2, 1980, Gerald’s parents, William J. Reilly and Elizabeth C. Reilly, instituted an action on their son’s behalf and in their own right against SEPTA, its bus driver, Vance Zieganfuss, and the driver of the automobile that struck Gerald, William M. Baker, and his mother, [211]*211Bernice S. Baker, owner of the automobile that William M. Baker was driving.

The case was tried before the Honorable I. Raymond Kremer, Judge of the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia, and a jury. After a three week trial, the jury returned its verdict on February 24, 1983, in favor of Gerald and awarded him $7,875,000.00 in damages. William Baker was found to be 65% negligent, SEPTA and Zieganfuss, 30% negligent, and Gerald, 5% contributorily negligent. Accordingly, the trial court reduced the verdict by 5% in compliance with the jury’s finding of contributory negligence and further reduced the verdict by $15,000.00, the amount of wage loss recoverable under the Pennsylvania No-Fault Motor Vehicle Insurance Act.1 Finally, the court added delay damages permitted by Pa.R.C.P. 2382, resulting in a molded verdict of $9,815,525.00. SEPTA and Zieganfuss filed Motions for Judgment N.O.V. or, in the alternative, for New Trial.3 A court en banc (Kremer, DiBona and White, JJ.) dismissed the motions, judgment was entered on the verdict as molded, and SEPTA and Zieganfuss filed an [212]*212appeal in the Superior Court. SEPTA raised the following grounds for reversal:

1) There was insufficient evidence of negligence to support the jury’s verdict against it; and
2) The trial judge erred in refusing to ask the jury certain voir dire questions proposed by SEPTA; and
3) In charging the jury with respect to SEPTA’s duty of care as a common carrier and with respect to Gerald’s duty of care; and
4) The trial judge erred in:
a) allowing plaintiff to recover for the costs attributable to his custodial care and maintenance at the Woods Schools;
b) allowing evidence of plaintiff’s medical expenses recoverable under the No-Fault Act into the trial record, albeit with cautionary instructions; and
c) in awarding plaintiff damages for delay under Pennsylvania Rules of Civil Procedure 238; and
5) The trial judge should have recused himself because of:
a) claimed hostility toward SEPTA’s trial counsel, Stuart Schwartz;
b) plaintiff’s trial counsel, Robert C. Daniels’, prior representation of all the Commonwealth’s justices and judges, including the trial judge, in a class action seeking increased compensation for the judiciary;
c) the trial judge’s son-in-law’s affiliation as an associate lawyer with plaintiff’s trial counsel’s law firm; and
d) his step-nephew’s (i) affiliation as a lawyer with the same law firm, (ii) alleged concurrent representation of the trial judge in another unrelated case, and (iii) prior relationship as the trial judge’s law clerk.

Superior Court concluded, after a discussion of the facts on the issue of liability, that there was sufficient evidence in the record from which a jury was entitled to conclude that SEPTA and its driver were negligent. With [213]*213this conclusion we have no quarrel. Since the facts and all reasonable inferences arising therefrom must be viewed in the light most favorable to the verdict winner, it is reasonable to conclude that the jury found that the bus driver did, in fact, sound his horn and waved Gerald across the street, in front of the bus and into the path of the oncoming vehicle (approaching from the rear of the bus), and that such action on the part of the bus driver was negligently performed and constituted a substantial factor in causing Gerald’s injuries. See Leary v. Lawrence Sales Corp., 442 Pa. 389, 275 A.2d 32 (1971).

With regard to the recusal issues, Superior Court found that SEPTA’s contention as to the trial judge’s personal bias and hostility toward its trial counsel had been waived and was, in any event, without merit. We agree. No allegation of bias or animosity of the judge to SEPTA was ever alleged. Any such animosity, standing alone, between a lawyer and judge is irrelevant.

Superior Court also determined that Daniels’ representation of all of the Commonwealth’s justices and judges in a class action seeking increased judicial compensation for all, (Kremer et al, v. Barbieri, 48 Pa. Commonwealth Ct. 557, 411 A.2d 558, aff'd. 490 Pa. 444, 417 A.2d 121 (1980)) did not require the trial judge to recuse himself because of the “rule of necessity.” To agree with SEPTA would force Daniels to forego trial practice in Pennsylvania. Superior Court itself would have had to recuse in this case. Only those judges and justices coming to the bench after the Kremer decision would not have to recuse themselves. No lawyer should be compelled to suffer such a disaster because of his pro bono representation of all the jurists of Pennsylvania.

Superior Court also determined that the trial court erred in ruling, as a matter of law, that the Woods Schools (an institution Gerald will be confined to for the remainder of his life) was providing custodial services, and that those [214]*214services could be recovered as damages instead of from the no-fault carrier.

Setting aside the rest of the issues, Superior Court then, strangely, remanded the case for an evidentiary hearing before a judge, other than those of the trial court en banc, to determine whether the trial judge should have recused himself because of either or both of the remaining two complaints regarding the trial judge’s son-in-law and step-nephew.

We granted Gerald’s Petition for Allowance of Appeal in order to consider, together with all the other issues, an apparent usurpation by an intermediate appellate court of administrative power reserved exclusively to us by the Constitution of our Commonwealth. Following oral argument before us, we vacated the Order of Superior Court remanding the cause for an evidentiary hearing, and remanded this matter to Superior Court for consideration and disposition of the remaining issues not decided by that court.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
489 A.2d 1291, 507 Pa. 204, 1985 Pa. LEXIS 308, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/reilly-v-southeastern-pennsylvania-transportation-authority-pa-1985.