Court Opinion

ID: 9710358
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 04:08:04.333681+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:56.251042
License: Public Domain

FORD ELLIOTT, J.,
concurring and dissenting:
¶ 1 I join most of the majority’s well-reasoned analysis of appellants’ issues, including its conclusion that Pennsylvania does not recognize a cause of action for a pattern or practice of ignoring, failing to investigate, and/or failing to remediate allegations of molestation. I must respectfully dissent, however, from that portion of the majority’s opinion finding no reversible error in allowing evidence of pattern or practice to go to the jury.
¶2 It is true that the jury was given special interrogatories and found the diocesan parties negligent as to both the valid and invalid theories of liability. It is also true that the diocesan parties’ awareness of Father Luddy’s past aberrant behavior was relevant to establishing whether the diocesan parties knew or should have known of Father’s Luddy’s pedophilia for purposes of establishing the valid negligent retention and supervision theory. Nevertheless, based on the volume of evidence presented to the jury to support the pattern or practice theory, much of which addressed the diocesan parties’ actions or inactions in the face of other priests’ misconduct, I would be constrained to find a prejudicial taint that may well have influenced the jury’s verdict as to the valid theory.