Salameh v. Spossey

731 A.2d 649
CourtCommonwealth Court of Pennsylvania
DecidedJuly 1, 1999
StatusPublished
Cited by17 cases

This text of 731 A.2d 649 (Salameh v. Spossey) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Salameh v. Spossey, 731 A.2d 649 (Pa. Ct. App. 1999).

Opinion

KELLEY, Judge.

In these consolidated appeals, Dr. Abdul Aziz Salameh (Salameh) appeals from an order of the Court of Common Pleas of Washington County (trial court) denying Salameh’s post-trial motions and declining to grant a new trial. We affirm.

I. FACTS

Salameh is a medical doctor of Palestinian/Jordanian ancestry who is now an American citizen practicing medicine in Washington County, Pennsylvania. Sala-meh owned the Duane Hotel on South Main Street located in the downtown area of the City of Washington (City). The trial court charitably described the hotel as an antiquated, ill-kept building. The City cited the hotel on prior occasions for various ordinance and code violations due to its deteriorated condition. In an attempt to improve the structure, Salameh applied for federal and state rehabilitative funds.

In accordance with the regulations governing the receipt of the governmental rehabilitative funds, Salameh applied for a building permit. The City’s planning commission approved the application, but expressed concern about the availability of off-street parking as required by City ordinance. The plans were submitted to city council for review. Due to previous problems with the building, the mayor and city council proceeded carefully in its consideration of the permit for reconstruction.

Delays occurred in the issuance of the building permit due to disputes over the available number of parking spaces and whether the parking spaces were in accordance with the zoning ordinance. The trial court ultimately settled the zoning ordinance issue directing the City to issue the building permit.

Salameh then filed a complaint against the City and Robert Sabot (Sabot), a city council member, alleging various civil rights and state tort violations arising out of Salameh’s application for the building permit. The City and Sabot filed preliminary objections seeking a more specific pleading which the trial court granted. Salameh’s amended complaint included a cause of action for civil rights violations pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, 1 a claim for discrimination/denial of equal protection also under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, and state tort claims for defamation, commercial disparagement, invasion of privacy, intentional *653 interference with contractual opportunity and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

Salameh also filed an action against L. Anthony Spossey (Spossey), Suzanne Gomez (Gomez) and Paul Manning (Manning) 2 which, in addition to the same claims brought against the City and Sabot, alleged malicious prosecution and wrongful use of civil proceedings. The trial court consolidated the cases upon motion filed by Salameh. Prior to trial, Salameh filed a motion to challenge the jury array, which the trial court denied. The action finally came up for trial in March 1993.

At the conclusion of Salameh’s case, the City, Sabot, Spossey, Gomez, and Manning (hereinafter collectively referred to as “defendants”) moved for, and the trial court granted, a directed verdict on Salameh’s claims for intentional infliction of emotional distress, commercial disparagement, invasion of privacy and defamation. The trial court sent the claims of civil rights violations, discrimination, intentional interference with contractual opportunity, wrongful use of civil proceedings and malicious prosecution to the jury. The jury returned a verdict on all claims in favor of defendants.

Salameh timely filed a motion for post-trial relief. After several years of delay due to Salameh’s inability to secure the record, the trial court held oral argument on the motion. By order dated March 10, 1997, the trial court denied the post-trial motions and declined to grant a new trial. This appeal followed. 3

II. ISSUES

Salameh presents the following issues for our review:

(1) whether legal errors resulted in the impanelment of a jury not free from the appearance or reality of bias;
(2) whether the trial court erred as a matter of law when it granted defendant’s motion for a directed verdid/non-suit on the claims of defamation, invasion of privacy and commercial disparagement;
(3) whether the trial court erred as a matter of law when it excluded Sala-meh’s proffered evidence related to prejudice against him;
(4) whether Salameh is entitled to judgment notwithstanding the verdict regarding the claim of the violation of procedural due process rights; and
(5) whether the trial court erred as a matter of law when it refused to issue jury instructions as requested and by otherwise issuing erroneous instructions.

III. DISCUSSION

A. Issue 1 - Legal errors with respect to impanelment of the jury

Salameh argues that the trial court committed several legal errors resulting in the impanelment of a jury not free from the appearance or reality of bias. 4 We will discuss each alleged error separately.

*654 1. Impanelment of the jury

First, Salameh contends that the trial court erred by denying his petition to challenge the jury array. 5 Salameh argues that the trial court failed to prevent the jury selection process from being contaminated due to the direct and unauthorized interference by employees of the Washington County Commissioners who generated the computer list of jurors to be specially seated for this trial. This alleged contamination, Salameh contends, resulted from the jury commissioners’ failure to follow the mandatory statutory provisions contained in Chapter 45 of the Judicial Code which govern the jury commissioners duties with respect to the selection and custody of jurors. Salameh contends that the jury commissioners have unlawfully delegated their statutory responsibilities to the employees of the Washington County Commissioners. Salameh argues that because these duties have been delegated to employees of overtly partisan political officials where a single party dominates the machinery of government, the jury pools are non-representative and partisan. Further, Salameh argues that the jury lists were not drawn from a cross-section of the community. Salameh contends that the lists were not supplemented by other available records resulting in the complete absence of the presence of members of the non-white race and/or ethnic groups, despite their presence in the general population of Washington County. 6

Pursuant to section 2122 of the Judicial Code, the composition of the jury selection commission in Washington County consists of two elected jury commissioners and the President Judge of the Court of Common Pleas of Washington County. 42 Pa.C.S.

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731 A.2d 649, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/salameh-v-spossey-pacommwct-1999.