Court Opinion

ID: 9862872
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-25 02:21:33.160151+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:36:40.566288
License: Public Domain

LARSEN, Justice,
dissenting.
If the statutory limitation on damages against Commonwealth agencies were a viable issue in this case, I would *599agree with the majority that there are two distinct claimants in this action who may recover damages to the extent of separate statutory caps, and that delay damages may be assessed against appellee SEPTA. Accordingly, I join in those parts of the majority opinion which address these issues.
Because I find, however, that the issue of the statutory limitation on damages against Commonwealth agencies is not viable herein, I dissent. The majority, without comment, has reduced the doctrine of res judicata to a quaint anachronism; thus, henceforth, the law of res judicata need not concern courts and litigants in this Commonwealth. Conclusive and final judgments no longer exist as between parties, in that losing parties can now raise any “nonwaivable” question on collateral review as well as on direct appeal.
When we granted the petition for allowance of appeal filed by appellant, Francis Tulewicz, Administrator, we denied SEPTA’s cross-petition for allowance of appeal wherein SEPTA raised, among other matters, the issue of its waiver of the applicability of the statutory limitation on damages against Commonwealth agencies.1 SEPTA did not file an application for reconsideration of that order. Thus, as to the parties herein and the issues SEPTA raised in its cross-petition for allowance of appeal, our order was a final order. The majority opinion is misleading where it implies that SEPTA preserved the statutory limitation on damages issue after we granted allocatur in the case. Maj. op. at 428. SEPTA attempted to use this issue as a response to the excessiveness issue raised by appellant, but the issue of a *600verdict’s excessiveness in no way implicates the issue of whether a statutory immunity defense has been waived.
In Helmig v. Rockwell Manufacturing Co., 389 Pa. 21, 29, 131 A.2d 622, 626, cert. denied, 355 U.S. 832, 78 S.Ct. 46, 2 L.Ed.2d 44 (1957), this Court stated:
[T]he rule of res judicata is, that when a court of competent jurisdiction has determined a litigated cause on its merits, the judgment entered, until reversed, is, forever and under all circumstances, final and conclusive as between the parties to the suit and their privies, in respect to every fact which might properly be considered in reaching a judicial determination of the controversy, and in respect to all points of law there adjudged, as those points relate directly to the cause of action in litigation and affect the fund or other subject-matter then before the court.
An erroneous adjudication is res judicata in the absence of an appeal, but a void judgment is not. 20A P.L.E. Judgment § 251. If it was error to find that the statutory limitation on damages issue was waivable, that error, although regrettable, is res judicata as to SEPTA in that SEPTA did not seek this Court’s reconsideration of that issue. If, however, this Court lacked jurisdiction of the subject matter or of the person in this controversy, then our order was null and void and subject to collateral attack at any time. See Commonwealth v. Howard, 138 Pa.Super. 505, 10 A.2d 779 (1940).
Clearly, this Court did not lack jurisdiction of the subject matter or of the person in this case. Jurisdiction refers to the competency of a court to determine controversies of the general class to which a case presented for its consideration belongs, and to bind the parties to the litigation by its adjudication, regardless of whether the court can grant the relief requested due, for example, to questions concerning a defendant’s immunity. See In re Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., 488 Pa. 524, 412 A.2d 1099 (1980); Vendetti v. *601Schuster, 418 Pa. 68, 208 A.2d 864 (1965); County Const. Co. v. Livengood, Const. Corp., 393 Pa. 39, 142 A.2d 9 (1958); and De Waele v. Metropolitan Life Ins. Co., 358 Pa. 574, 58 A.2d 34 (1948); see also Cain v. Macklin, 663 S.W.2d 794 (Tenn.1984) (issue of governmental immunity is not a jurisdictional matter and can be waived for purposes of collateral review if not properly raised and preserved).
The majority cites In re Upset Sale, 522 Pa. 230, 560 A.2d 1388 (1989), to support its holding that the issue raised by SEPTA herein is non-waivable. In that case, this Court analogized the governmental immunity defense to the issue of an employer’s liability in workmen’s compensation cases. We did not, however, find that the governmental immunity defense was a jurisdictional matter. Nor does the majority do so in the instant action.
Accordingly, as the matter does not raise a jurisdictional question, it is indisputable that SEPTA is absolutely precluded from raising the issue of its waiver of the applicability of the statutory limitation on damages against Commonwealth agencies on this collateral review. Thus, I would affirm our previous decision in the case, upholding the judgment entered by the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County.
PAPADAKOS and CAPPY, JJ., join this dissenting opinion.

. The damages issue that was raised by appellant, Francis Tulewicz, Administrator, related solely to whether Superior Court had erred in finding that the damages awarded were excessive. Whether SEPTA had waived the application of the statutory cap on damages by failing to brief the issue in post-trial motions to the trial court is, beyond question, not an issue that is "fairly comprised therein.” See Pa. R.App.P. Rule 1115(a)(3) (“... Only the questions set forth in the petition, or fairly comprised therein, will ordinarily be considered by the court in the event an appeal is allowed.”)