Opinion ID: 2445782
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Sua Sponte Overruling of Flanagan

Text: Initially, the majority characterizes the occasions upon which this Court has revisited precedent on its own initiative as numerous. Majority Opinion at 214-15. In fact, particularly in comparison with the regularity with which this Court recites, enforcesand, indeed, stressesordinary principles of issue preservation and presentation, [1] such independent reordering of rules of decision is rare, and for good reasons. The need to grant reargument in the present case to permit Petitioners actually to be heard on a legal basis invoked on the majority's own initiative to justify overturning a favorable judgmentdespite never having been raised by Petitioners' opponentillustrates the difficulties occasioned by this irregular practice. In addition to their infrequency, sua sponte adjustments to rules of decision tend to occur in cases where the Court has had difficulty, over time, in administering particular, fundamental rules governing judicial review. Indeed, four of the five Pennsylvania opinions referenced by the majority arise out of, or directly concern, capital litigation. [2] The death cases comprise a unique area of the law, where this Court bears the responsibility to conduct direct appellate review over all verdicts and final post-conviction orders, and in which the Court has had great difficulty in maintaining a consensus covering core matters of review. [3] Regarding the approach of the United States Supreme Court, as referenced by the majority, that Court has expressed reservations similar to those set forth here. See, e.g., Colorado Republican Fed. Campaign Comm. v. Fed. Election Comm'n, 518 U.S. 604, 626, 116 S.Ct. 2309, 2321, 135 L.Ed.2d 795 (1996) (explaining that the `principles that animate our policy of stare decisis caution against overruling a longstanding precedent on a theory not argued by the parties' (quoting United States v. Int'l Bus. Machs. Corp., 517 U.S. 843, 855, 856, 116 S.Ct. 1793, 1800, 1801, 135 L.Ed.2d 124 (1996))). As in Pennsylvania, the decisions in which the High Court has taken the extraordinary step of reordering rules of decision on its own motion tend to be ones of widespread application that have generated ongoing controversy. Indeed, the majority's categorization of its Freed decision with such watershed decisions of civil and criminal procedure as Erie Railroad Company v. Tompkins, 304 U.S. 64, 58 S.Ct. 817, 82 L.Ed. 1188 (1938) (holding that state substantive rules of decision apply in federal diversity cases), and Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 81 S.Ct. 1684, 6 L.Ed.2d 1081 (1961) (extending the application of the federal exclusionary rule to the States), seems particularly inapt. See Majority Opinion at 215-16. I do agree there are situations in which appellate courts legitimately may raise and decide matters of their own accord. My point is that, particularly where the Court is not merely applying a settled rule of decision to sustain a valid order or judgment, [4] the practice is peculiarly one that calls for the exercise of prudence and restraint, since it tests the limits of the adversarial process grounding the judicial system. Accord Adam A. Minali and Michael R. Smith, Playing God: A Critical Look at Sua Sponte Decisions by Appellate Courts, 69 TENN. L.REV. 245, 272-86 (2002) (discussing the impact of sua sponte decision-making upon the adversarial system). With respect, it is my considered position that the sua sponte overruling of Flanagan did not reflect such deliberativeness. First, consistent with Justice Eakin's views, I do not regard the straightforward principle announced in Flanagan  that nurse testimony as to medical diagnoses is constrained according to the legislatively-established limits of the nursing profession-as implicating the exception to stare decisis pertaining to decisions which are plainly erroneous. See Freed, 601 Pa. at 255, 971 A.2d at 1215 (Eakin, J., dissenting). Furthermore, I agree with Petitioners that Flanagan simply did not engender the sort of pervasive difficulties present in such cases. See Joint Supplemental Brief of Appellants on Reargument at 10. [5] Rather, the Freed majority identified only a single area of reasonable dispute concerning the breadth of Flanagan whether the decision impacted on expert testimony concerning causation which it readily corrected in Freed. See Freed, 601 Pa. at 242-44, 971 A.2d at 1207-08. [6] It is also worth noting that even such decisions as Erie and Mapp have generated strong and enduring responses raising legitimacy concerns in light of their sua sponte undertakings. [7] In addition to the inherent sensibility in reconciling expert qualifications with express statutory limits on professional competency, Flanagan was consistent with a significant trend, on the parts of courts and legislatures in many jurisdictions, of raising the standards governing expert witness testimony in medical malpractice actions. [8] Indeed, as all Justices participating in Freed recognized, in the Medical Care Availability and Reduction of Error (MCARE) Act, [9] the Pennsylvania General Assembly has specifically implemented a scheme which not only is consistent with Flanagan but expands upon it. See Freed, 601 Pa. at 256, 971 A.2d at 1215 (Eakin, J., dissenting) (referring to 40 P.S. § 1303.512). [10] This Court has previously refused to overrule common law decisions to accomplish a closed-ended departure from current practice, where the Legislature has codified the pre-existing common law. See Pioneer Commercial Funding Corp. v. Am. Fin. Mortgage Corp., 579 Pa. 275, 292-93, 855 A.2d 818, 829-30 (2004). I continue to question the wisdom of undertaking such a closed-ended departure in any event, let alone outside the normal parameters of judicial review. [11] Finally, to the extent the Freed majority raised a concern with a conflict between rules specific to medical malpractice actions and the broader class of tort cases, see Freed, 601 Pa. at 244-47, 971 A.2d at 1208-10, such concern seems unfounded, in that the salutary purposes of the special rules are very clear. See infra § III (discussing the implementation of special rules in the medical malpractice arena to address social policy issues). Indeed, this Court itself has implemented an extensive set of rules unique to professional liability claims encompassing medical malpractice. See Pa.R.Civ.P. Nos. 1042.1-1042.72.