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PA Supreme Court Affirms Cap on School & Municipal Liability

In an important decision for school districts and municipalities, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court this week upheld a cap on damages claimed by plaintiffs injured by public entities. Here, in the case of Zauflik v. Pennsbury School District, the Court invalidated a jury verdict in excess of $14 million dollars, leaving the plaintiffs with a revised award of just $500,000.

In this tragic case, a student was injured severely when a bus owned by the Pennsbury School District, and operated by a District employee, accelerated onto a sidewalk, hitting 20 students. The plaintiff suffered a crushed pelvis and required the amputation of her leg. There was no question that the District was liable for the injury.

The question in this case, though, involved the Political Subdivision Tort Claims Act and its cap on damages that can be awarded. Generally, governmental entities are immune from liability, but the Act includes some exceptions to that general rule. Even when an exception applies, as it did in this case, the law still says that no damages can be awarded against a local government in excess of $500,000 per incident.

Here, the plaintiffs argued that the cap was unconstitutional and that a $14 million award from the jury should stand. The Court affirmed the constitutionality of this limit on liability, however, leaving the plaintiff with the statutory cap.

This is an important decision for local governmental entities, since paying large verdicts in cases like this would divert taxpayer funds from providing other essential services. Governmental entities should be aware, though, that this Act and its cap on damages apply only to personal injury claims and not other types of disputes, like eminent domain actions, employment related claims and breach of contract disputes for example.

As always, governmental entities should contact legal counsel with any questions about possible liability.

PA Supremes: No Sunshine Needed for “Fact Finding” Meetings

The PA Supreme Court has upheld, against a challenge by a resident, action by members of a township board of supervisors who met in an unadvertised session for purposes of obtaining information that ultimately was used to help the supervisors decide whether or not to settle pending litigation.

In Smith v. Township of Richmond, the Court considered a challenge by a resident who claimed that the meeting needed to be advertised and opened to the public since it involved a quorum of the Board discussing Township business.  The purpose of the meeting, according to the Supervisors’ testimony, was to meet with other interested parties in order to understand some mining issues that were the subject of pending zoning litigation.  That information learned in the meeting was useful for helping the supervisors determine whether or not they wanted to settle that litigation in a certain way.

The resident argued that since the discussions involved information that was used later to make decisions, it constituted “deliberations” that must be conducted in public.  The Court, however, noted that “deliberations” were discussions about the decision itself, not just any discussion involving information that would later lead to the decision.  In other words, because the purpose of the meeting was “fact finding” in nature, and no supervisors discussed at that meeting how they were going to act based on the facts they were gathering there, any such discussions did not need to occur at a public meeting.

This is helpful guidance for local governmental agencies that often struggle attempting to determine when a meeting like this must be advertised and open to the public. It is important to note, though, that the discussion at a meeting like this would need to be limited to gathering facts, and any debate about what to do with those facts would then need to be at a publicly advertised meeting.

As with anything like this, you should consult with your solicitor before determining whether a particular meeting must be open to the public, but this case does provide helpful guidance for many local governments.