Opinion ID: 2334707
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: PTC Summary Judgment Motion

Text: We reiterate that pursuant to our limited grant of allocatur we address only those aspects of the courts' decisions and the parties' arguments relevant to whether Plaintiff had a common-law cause of action against PTC. See supra at 2 n. 2. To highlight the significance of this question, we must consider it in the context of the entire case. In its summary judgment motion, PTC asserted the defense of sovereign immunity as a Commonwealth party. Any assertion of sovereign immunity, however, is subject to the exceptions provided in 42 Pa.C.S. § 8522: § 8522. Exceptions to sovereign immunity (a) Liability imposed.The General Assembly, pursuant to section 11 of Article I of the Constitution of Pennsylvania, does hereby waive, in the instances set forth in subsection (b) . . ., sovereign immunity as a bar to an action against Commonwealth parties, for damages arising out of a negligent act where the damages would be recoverable under the common law . . . if the injury were caused by a person not having available the defense of sovereign immunity. (b) Acts which may impose liability. The following acts by a Commonwealth party may result in the imposition of liability on the Commonwealth and the defense of sovereign immunity shall not be raised to claims for damages caused by:     (4) Commonwealth real estate, highways and sidewalks.A dangerous condition of Commonwealth agency real estate and sidewalks, including Commonwealth-owned real property, lease-holds in the possession of a Commonwealth agency and Commonwealth-owned real property leased by a Commonwealth agency to private persons, and highways under the jurisdiction of a Commonwealth agency. . . . 42 Pa.C.S. § 8522 (emphasis added). The question this Court accepted for review concerns subsection (a) of Section 8522 whether under these facts Plaintiff could assert a common-law cause of action against a party, who unlike PTC, did not have available the defense of sovereign immunity. After PTC asserted the defense of sovereign immunity in its motion for summary judgment, Plaintiff alleged that the case fulfilled the requirements of the exception set forth in Section 8522(a). She maintained, generally, that a common law cause of action sounding in negligence could be asserted against a non-Commonwealth landowner based on a landowner's duty to the employees of an independent contractor. While the theories underlying the alleged duty tend to overlap and blend in the parties' arguments and the lower courts' discussions, we nonetheless distill three potential bases for the duty asserted by Plaintiff. For ease of discussion, we refer to each theory by reference to the related section of the Restatement (Second) of Torts: (1) Section 343, Dangerous Conditions Known To or Discoverable By Possessor; (2) Section 414, Negligence in Exercising Control Retained By Employer; and (3) Sections 416 and 427, collectively referred to as the Peculiar Risk Doctrine. [7] Conversely, PTC argued that even a landowner not subject to sovereign immunity would be shielded from liability under established Pennsylvania law, which generally does not impose a duty on a landowner employing an independent contractor, absent certain exceptions. In May 2002, the trial court entered an order granting PTC's motion for summary judgment, finding that Plaintiff failed to set forth a claim, recognized at common law, upon which relief could have been granted against a non-Commonwealth party landowner sufficient to satisfy the requirements for an exception to sovereign immunity set forth in Section 8522(a). Without fully considering the first potential theory of duty related to Section 343 (Dangerous Conditions), the court concluded that Plaintiff failed to demonstrate that PTC retained the control over the job site necessary to establish a duty under Section 414 (Retention of Control). The court focused on the language of the contract between NESL and PTC, under which NESL agreed to assume responsibility for all injuries to its employees. Likewise, regarding the third potential source of duty pursuant to Section 416 or 427, the court concluded that the facts of the case, as a matter of law, failed to establish the presence of a peculiar risk, where Decedent merely drove a dump truck on a haul road, a routine method of transporting material around a highway construction site. Plaintiff appealed the decision to the Commonwealth Court. Although that court's decision focused primarily on issues relating to Trumbull, the Commonwealth Court briefly addressed the merits of PTC's motion for summary judgment. While the court concluded that Plaintiff stated a claim of injury due to a defective condition of the land sufficient to satisfy the requirement for the real estate exception to sovereign immunity under subsection (b)(4) of Section 8522, [8] it did not specifically address Plaintiff's argument regarding dangerous conditions in the land in relation to subsection (a), where Plaintiff asserted that a common law cause of action could arise from a breach of a duty to protect Decedent from a non-obvious dangerous condition inherent in the land, see RESTATEMENT (SECOND) OF TORTS § 343. Instead, the court determined that Plaintiff satisfied Section 8522(a) by demonstrating that it exerted sufficient control over the worksite, after considering caselaw related to Section 414. The court based its finding of sufficient control on a safety videotape shown to workers, see infra at 14 n. 11, and PTC's appointment of on-site safety inspectors. Additionally, the court concluded that PTC was charged with the same degree of control as Trumbull exercised, because Trumbull was PTC's agent in performing safety checks. [9] Based on the factual issue of control pursuant to Plaintiff's Section 414 (Retention of Control) claim, the Commonwealth Court reversed the trial court's grant of summary judgment to PTC, concluding that Plaintiff avoided the application of sovereign immunity. On appeal to this Court, PTC asserts that the Commonwealth Court erred in reversing the trial court's grant of summary judgment. PTC contends that the Commonwealth Court erred in failing to find sovereign immunity applicable as a matter of law. In doing so, PTC reasserts many of the issues contested in the courts below. We address the parties' arguments on the potential application of each assertion of duty of a non-Commonwealth landowner to an employee of an independent contractor under the facts of this case, keeping in mind that our finding of an applicable duty would allow Plaintiff to assert a common law cause of action in negligence necessary to satisfy Section 8522(a)'s requirements for an exception to sovereign immunity, and thus prevent a grant of summary judgment in favor of PTC.
Plaintiff asserts the existence of a common-law cause of action in this case based on the general law imposing a duty of care on possessors of land to business invitees, such as the employees of independent contractors, where a non-obvious, dangerous condition exists on the possessor's land. As developed through our caselaw, a landowner's duty regarding such conditions derives from Section 343 of the Restatement (Second) of Torts. [10] See, e.g., Crane v. I.T.E. Circuit Breaker Co., 443 Pa. 442, 278 A.2d 362, 363 (1971); Engle v. Reider, 366 Pa. 411, 77 A.2d 621, 625 (1951). Plaintiff alleges that the dangerous condition inherent in the land was the instability of the hillside on which the haul road was constructed due to the existence of coal seams. Deposition testimony, at least for purposes of summary judgment, can be read to support Plaintiff's position that the area contained coal seams, which she alleges could have caused the haul road to collapse given that coal seams provide insufficient support for roadways. Accordingly, Plaintiff argues that she would have a common-law cause of action sounding in negligence against a non-Commonwealth landowner based on its breach of a duty to protect Decedent from the inherent and non-obvious danger of the instability of the hillside upon which NESL built the haul road. In response, PTC cites cases, see, e.g., Engle, 366 Pa. 411, 77 A.2d 621, holding that liability for injuries to a contractor's employee will not attach when the owner warns the contractor of the dangerous condition because there is no reason for the landowner to expect that [the contractor] will not discover or realize the danger, RESTATEMENT (SECOND) OF TORTS § 343(b). Additionally, the duty to warn the contractor, according to PTC, is only triggered if the owner has superior knowledge to the contractor regarding the relevant danger or risk. In this case, PTC argues that NESL was well aware of the danger presented by the alleged coal seams because it was the party responsible for excavating the seams adjacent to the haul road. Accordingly, PTC contends that it did not owe a duty to Decedent pursuant to Section 343(b). In any case sounding in negligence, a plaintiff must demonstrate: (1) a duty of care; (2) the breach of the duty; (3) a causal connection between the conduct and the resulting injury; and (4) actual loss or damage resulting to the plaintiff. See R.W. v. Manzek, 585 Pa. 335, 888 A.2d 740, 746 (2005). The question before the Court presents a question of law regarding the duty imposed upon PTC under the facts of this case. See id. The courts of this Commonwealth have spoken to the duty possessors of land have toward the employees of contractors. In cases where a possessor of land employs an independent contractor, this Court has concluded that a possessor of land must use reasonable care to make the premises safe or give adequate and timely warning of dangers known to him but unknown to the contractor or his employees. Crane, 278 A.2d at 364 (citations omitted); see also Engle, 77 A.2d at 624. However, the possessor of the land can insulate himself from liability by warning the contractor of the existence of any dangerous conditions on the premises which he knows or should know, and need not warn the contractor's employees. Id. Moreover, a possessor will not be held responsible for defective conditions of the land if they are the product of the independent contractor's work. Id. Accordingly, Plaintiff's first assertion of a duty, upon which a cause of action could be asserted against PTC if it were a non-Commonwealth party for purposes of the sovereign immunity exception set forth in 42 Pa.C.S. § 8522(a), must be rejected as lacking the requisite factual predicate under the rule set forth in Crane and Engle. It is without debate that NESL, Decedent's employer, was fully aware of the potential, non-obvious danger of the alleged instability of the hillside due to the presence of coal seams, given that it was the party responsible for the removal of coal seams nearby. Similarly, to the extent that Plaintiff's allegations can be read to assert non-obvious dangers present in the haul road itself, we find no liability may attach to PTC in this regard, as it is factually undisputed that those conditions would be the product of NESL's construction and maintenance of the haul road. See Crane, 278 A.2d at 364.
Plaintiff acknowledges that, generally, landowners employing independent contractors are exempt from liability for injuries to an independent contractor's employees absent an exercise of control over the means and methods of the contractor's work, see, e.g., Celender v. Allegheny County San. Auth., 208 Pa.Super. 390, 222 A.2d 461, 464 (1966) (quoting RESTATEMENT (SECOND) OF TORTS § 414). [11] Plaintiff claims that PTC demonstrated its control over the site through a safety orientation videotape shown to all employed on the site asserting that PTC's representatives would be looking after your interests as well as the owner's. [12] She also asserted that PTC retained control by employing an on-site safety inspector as well as contracting with Trumbull for construction management services. She argues that this was not the typical situation of a property owner visiting a construction site to check on the progress, which has been determined not to constitute control, but instead involved an owner who employed its own on-site safety representative who had the authority to stop work. Plaintiff asserted that at the very least, a jury issue existed as to whether PTC retained sufficient control to prevent summary judgment on the sovereign immunity exception. PTC contends that Plaintiff failed to establish control necessary to trigger a duty from which a common-law cause of action could arise. In support, PTC relies upon caselaw holding that an owner's reservation of rights to inspect the work or even to stop work does not satisfy the necessary control element. See Celender, 208 Pa.Super. 390, 222 A.2d 461. Rather, PTC contends that the caselaw requires demonstration of control over how the contractor performs the assigned tasks. PTC maintains that the logic behind this rule is to allow an owner to rely upon the contractor's expertise in the construction project. In support, PTC cites the recent Commonwealth Court decision in LaChance v. Michael Baker Corp., 869 A.2d 1054 (Pa. Cmwlth.2005), which it asserts conflicts with the decision of the Commonwealth Court sub judice. In LaChance, the Commonwealth Court addressed a claim of liability in a case where the property owner, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT), had the power to supervise, inspect, and stop its contractor's work. The court concluded that liability did not attach because PennDOT's inspection rights, exercised to assure itself that [the contractor] performed its work safely, as [the contractor] had agreed in its contract, did not make PennDOT guarantor of the safety of [the contractor's] employees. Id. at 1060-61. In applying the law to the facts of the case, PTC asserts that it did not control the means and methods of construction of the haul road or the decision to assign the fatal task to Decedent, which it contends were entirely under the control of NESL, who designed, built, and maintained the haul road at issue. Thus, it argues that summary judgment based on sovereign immunity was appropriate. In Hader v. Coplay Cement Manufacturing Co., 410 Pa. 139, 189 A.2d 271 (1963), we considered the specific duties of property owners in cases where an owner turns over control of its property to an independent contractor. Initially, we observed, [o]rdinarily one who engages an independent contractor is not responsible for the acts of such independent contractor or his employees because a person is not liable for the acts of negligence of another absent a master and servant relationship; [r]esponsibility goes with authority. Id. at 277. Accordingly, [a]n owner of land who delivers temporary possession of a portion of the land to an independent contractor owes no duty of care to the employees of the independent contractor with respect to an obviously dangerous condition on that portion of the land in the possession of the contractor. [13] Id. ; see also Brletich v. U.S. Steel Corp., 445 Pa. 525, 285 A.2d 133, 134 (1971). So long as the owner is out of control of the land, no duty is placed on the owner. Id. In considering whether an owner has retained control by monitoring the work site, this Court stated, It is normal for an owner or an interested party to visit the scene of new construction to observe the progress of work. Such inspections of finished work furnish no evidence of a right to control the workmen. . . . [I]nspection of finished work shows only an interest in the result to be obtained. Hader, 189 A.2d at 278 (citations omitted). Accordingly, we found frequent visits of plant managers innocuous when there was not a scintilla of evidence that either [the plant manager or vice-president] at any time gave, or attempted to give, any instructions as to the manner of installation of the [equipment at issue]. Id.,see also Emery v. McCollum, 725 A.2d 807, 813 (Pa.Super.1999) (finding that owner's employment of liaison to monitor compliance with contractual provisions did not constitute assumption of control over the contractor's work); Celender, 222 A.2d at 463 (quoting RESTATEMENT (SECOND) OF TORTS § 414, supra, at 14 n. 11, for the proposition that mere ability to order work stopped to inspect progress or to make recommendations for alterations does not constitute control). Similarly, as noted by PTC, the Commonwealth Court in LaChance found that PennDOT did not exert the necessary control over the worksite merely by including in its contract a provision retaining the right of inspection and the authority to suspend work. Based on this caselaw, we reject Plaintiff's attempt to argue that there is a genuine issue of material fact concerning PTC's retention of control of the worksite by way of the videotape, its provisions for safety inspections, or its employment of Trumbull, given the well-established law of this Commonwealth that such actions do not constitute control. As the Commonwealth Court held in LaChance, [t]o find liability simply because PennDOT addresses the issue of safety in its construction contracts would only encourage PennDOT to disregard safety in its contracts. Sound public policy, however, dictates that PennDOT monitor the safety of its highway construction projects and continue to pay its contractors to conduct safe job sites. LaChance, 869 A.2d at 1064. It would likewise disserve public policy to impose liability on PTC for going one step further and hiring a contractor specifically to supervise safety issues on site in addition to requiring its general contractor to be responsible for safety under its own contract with PTC. Instead, we conclude that under NESL's contract with PTC, PTC turned over control of the worksite to its general contractor, NESL, and did not retain control over NESL's means and methods for purposes of a Section 414 analysis. See Hader, 410 Pa. 139, 189 A.2d 271.
In the event that the courts concluded that PTC did not retain control, Plaintiff asserted [14] that the facts of the case fit within the doctrine of peculiar risks or special dangersan exception to the doctrine of non-liability for owners out of possession. [15] Plaintiff relied on the Superior Court decision in McDonough v. U.S. Steel Corp., 228 Pa.Super. 268, 324 A.2d 542 (1974), in which the court found the owner liable based on the peculiar risk inherent in the decedent's task of driving an off-highway dump truck on the edge of an unstable fifty-foot-high pile of ore at night without proper lighting. Plaintiff alleged that the facts of this case fit within the McDonough analysis in that the work site did not contain the necessary safety precautions for a similar off-highway dump truck where, inter alia, the road was improperly graded, lacked appropriate visual markers of the road edge, and was located adjacent to an excavated area. [16] PTC contended that it does not fit within the exception because the peculiar risk or special danger must be foreseeable at the time the contract is executed and not within the usual and ordinary risk associated with the general type of work. See Emery, 725 A.2d at 814. PTC asserts that it was not foreseeable that NESL would construct an allegedly faulty haul road or choose an unqualified party to drive the truck. Moreover, PTC maintains that all construction work includes some degree of risk and that driving a truck on a haul road is not an unusual risk on a highway construction site. Accordingly, PTC asserts that this exception does not apply and, thus, summary judgment based on sovereign immunity is appropriate. We previously have summarized the rule presented by Sections 416 and 427 of the Restatement: the employer remains liable for injuries resulting from danger which he should contemplate at the time he enters the contract, and cannot shift to the contractor responsibility for such dangers, or for taking precautions against them. Brletich, 285 A.2d at 136. We further noted that the peculiar risk/special dangers provisions are not intended to apply to the taking of routine precautions of a kind which any careful contractor could reasonably be expected to take, against all of the ordinary and customary dangers which may arise in the course of the contemplated work. Id. at 137. We held that so long as the employer exercises reasonable care in selecting a competent contractor, liability for failing to take precautions will not attach. Id. As summarized by the Superior Court, the exception requires a two-fold test: (1) whether the risk is foreseeable to the owner at the time the contract is executed . . . and (2) whether the risk is different from the usual and ordinary risk associated with the general type of work done. Emery, 725 A.2d 807, 814 (Pa.Super.1999). We conclude that under the facts presented here, there was no peculiar risk or special danger involved in the task of driving an off-highway dump truck on a highway construction site. We reject Plaintiff's reliance on McDonough. See supra at 19 n. 16. Not only did the accident in this case occur during a routine event on a construction site, but even under the significantly more dangerous facts of McDonough, which involved the task of driving a truck close to the edge of an inherently unstable pile of ore, the court only found liability where the nature of the task required it to be performed at night. Any responsibility for improper construction or maintenance of a standard feature of a highway construction project must lie with NESL, or as explained below, with Trumbull. By finding that the Peculiar Risk Doctrine does not apply to this case, we conclude that PTC has no duty to the employees of NESL, the general contractor that assumed control of the worksite pursuant to its contract with PTC. Consequently, after review of all Plaintiff's asserted bases for a duty owed by PTC to Decedent, we conclude that summary judgment in favor of PTC is appropriate absent a duty pursuant to which a common-law cause of action sounding in negligence could be brought against a similarly situated party not protected by sovereign immunity. See 42 Pa.C.S. § 8522(a).