Witt v. DEPARTMENT OF BANKING

409 A.2d 932, 48 Pa. Commw. 264, 1980 Pa. Commw. LEXIS 1004
CourtCommonwealth Court of Pennsylvania
DecidedJanuary 3, 1980
Docket777 C.D. 1977
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 409 A.2d 932 (Witt v. DEPARTMENT OF BANKING) 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
Witt v. DEPARTMENT OF BANKING, 409 A.2d 932, 48 Pa. Commw. 264, 1980 Pa. Commw. LEXIS 1004 (Pa. Ct. App. 1980).

Opinions

Memorandum Opinion by

President Judge Bowman,

By order dated October 12, 1979, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania vacated our Order of June 12, 1978, entered in the above proceedings and remanded the record to us for consideration in light of Mayle v. Pennsylvania Department of Highways, 479 Pa. 384, 388 A.2d 709 (1978); DuBree v. Commonwealth, 481 Pa. 540, 393 A.2d 293 (1978) and the Act of September 28, 1978, P.L. 788 (Act 152), amending or adding 1 Pa. C.S. §2310 and 42 Pa. C.S. §§761, 762, 931, 5101, 5110, 5111, 5522.

By opinion supporting our Order of June 12, 1978, we had concluded that sovereign immunity protected [266]*266the Department of Banting for the cause of action asserted against it; that absolute immunity barred the cause of action asserted against defendants, Dellmuth and Patterson; and that as the status of the remaining defendants as officers of the Commonwealth— upon which our jurisdiction depended — could not be ascertained, depositions were to be taken to thereafter determine their status as officers of the Commonwealth for jurisdictional purposes.

In response to the remaining defendants’ motion to clarify our Opinion and Order of June 12, 1978, we issued a further Order on June 29, 1978, as follows:

Now, June 29, 1978, having considered defendants’ motion for clarification of our prior opinion and Order of June 12,1978, in the above case, it is ordered as follows:
1. The Court, although raising sua sponte, the issue of the power and authority of the plaintiff to assert the cause of action complained of, declines to pass upon said issue as it pertains to defendants Department of Banking, Carl K. Dellmuth and Gr. Allen Patterson, as the cause of action was dismissed as to said defendants upon other grounds. As to the remaining defendants, the Court preserves this issue in the event it concludes, after further proceedings, that said remaining defendants, upon the cause of action asserted, are within the jurisdiction of this Court as ‘officers’ of the Commonwealth.
2. The issue of whether the remaining defendants were properly served to afford in personam jurisdiction over them is likewise preserved and will be decided by this Court if it concludes said defendants are ‘officers’ of the Commonwealth for purposes of the jurisdiction of this Court.

[267]*267Pursuant to the remand order of the Supreme Court we have reconsidered our prior Opinion and Order of June 12,1978. Although this cause of action accrued prior to the effective date of Act 152 it is not within the exceptions relating to limited waiver of sovereign immunity, see 42 Pa. C.S.§5110(a). Therefore, the application of Act 152 as to defendant Department of Banking is controlled by our decision in Brungard v. Hartman, 46 Pa. Commonwealth Ct. 10, 405 A.2d 1089 (1979) and sovereign immunity constitutes a defense to this cause of action.

As to defendants Dellmuth and Patterson, upon reconsideration of the defense of absolute immunity in light of DuBree, supra, our decision in Estate of Armstrong v. Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole, 46 Pa. Commonwealth Ct. 33, 405 A.2d 1099 (1979) controls. In Armstrong we held that despite the enactment of Act 152, which appears to retain the common law principle of absolute immunity, the Act incorporates by implication any changing principles of the common law. As DuBree sets forth new guidelines, those guidelines are to be applied.

Among other tests laid down in DuBree is one negating responsibility on the theory of vicarious responsibility. “Consistent with the interest in unimpaired decisionmaking, we believe it appropriate to protect from the possibility of suit a public servant who has not himself engaged in actionable conduct. Thus, those in the ‘chain of command’ should not be subject to suit on any theory of vicarious responsibility. ’ ’ DuBree at 545, 393 A.2d at 295.

An examination of the well pleaded factual averments of plaintiff’s complaint reveals that each of the individual defendants is being sued in his official capacity “for acts done within the scope of employment.” As applied to defendants Dellmuth and Patterson, other than setting forth certain statutory [268]*268duties placed upon a Secretary of Banking, there is no averment that either of them in their official capacity or by their personal action or nonaction committed any wrongful act. Paragraphs 16, 18 and 24 are directed against the Department of Banking acting through these defendants and others. Similarly, paragraphs 19 and 20 are directed against the Department and other individually named defendants, not including these individuals.

A possible exception is paragraph 23 of the complaint which alleges that neither the Department nor any of the individually named defendants “took any action to curtail the sale of securities by Pioneer and Bellevue or to prevent the conduct of business on Pioneer’s premises by unrelated business entities.”

Conspicuously absent is any averment that these individual defendants had a duty to or in fact did approve the sale of securities. The want of any such averment and its implications are particularly significant in this case. In another proceedings in this Court (No. 757 C.D. 1974) the Pennsylvania Securities Commission sought receivership of these financial institutions which we so ordered and plaintiff here was named receiver by this Court upon the petition of the Commission. As the record in that proceedings discloses, Pioneer was charged with selling “thrift notes” over a period of years dating back to 1955 contrary to The Pennsylvania Securities Act, Act of June 24, 1939, P.L. 748 as amended 70 P.S. §31 et seq. and the more recently enacted Pennsylvania Securities Act of 1972, Act of December 5, 1972, P.L. 1280, 70 P.S. §1-101 et seq.; that it did so in concert with its affiliated companies and which actions, combined with others, produced insolvency of these affiliated companies. Manifestly by so acting the Commission asserted power and authority over the affairs of these companies bottomed upon the unlawful sale [269]*269of thrift notes contrary to the very statutes which the Commission is charged to enforce. Now the receiver we appointed in the petition of the Commission to marshall the assets and liabilities of these companies for the benefit of creditors would shift to these individual defendants, or at least have them share, a duty to have curtailed the sale of these thrift notes. In essence, the asserted duty to have curtailed the sale of thrift notes involved the question of their exempt or non-exempt status as they were from time to time issued over the years, a duty imposed upon the Commission as contrasted with a general duty under other statutes imposed upon the Department of Banking over the affairs of financial institutions.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
409 A.2d 932, 48 Pa. Commw. 264, 1980 Pa. Commw. LEXIS 1004, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/witt-v-department-of-banking-pacommwct-1980.