Court Opinion

ID: 9703580
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 00:01:20.725035+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:50.319046
License: Public Domain

FORD ELLIOTT, Judge,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent to the majority’s decision in two respects. Initially, I believe under the authority of 42 Pa. C.S.A. § 762 and 42 Pa.C.S. § 8541-8564, jurisdiction over this appeal more properly rests in Commonwealth Court. In *320Battle v. Philadelphia Housing Authority, 406 Pa.Super. 578, 594 A.2d 769 (1991), this court determined that the PHA was in fact a local agency covered by the provisions of the Political Subdivision Tort Claims Act. This court has previously determined that Commonwealth Court is vested with exclusive jurisdiction over an appeal involving parties under the Act. In Brady v. West Manchester Township Sewer Authority, 338 Pa.Super. 144, 487 A.2d 894 (1985), transferred to 97 Pa.Cmwlth. 31, 508 A.2d 1287 (1986), allocatur denied, 514 Pa. 649, 524 A.2d 495 (1987), we stated at footnote 1:
Subsection 762(a)(7) of the Judicial Code was amended on December 20, 1982 pursuant to P.L. 1409, No. 326, art. II, § 201, effective in 60 days. The prior language of subsection 762(a)(7) is as follows:
§ 762. Appeals from court of common pleas
(a) General rule. Except as provided in subsection (b), the Commonwealth Court shall have exclusive jurisdiction of appeal from final orders of the courts of common pleas in the following cases:
(7) Immunity waiver matters. Matters in which immunity has been waived pursuant to Subchapter C of Chapter 85 (relating to actions against local parties).
A reading of the above cited prior language of subsection 762(a)(7) reveals that it was much narrower than the present language. Under the prior language the local agency immunity under the Political Subdivision Tort Claims Act, 42 Pa.C.S. 8541, et seq., would have to be waived before the appellate jurisdiction of the Commonwealth [C]ourt would be invoked. However, under the present language all that is necessary is that a local agency be sued in tort which then invokes Commonwealth Court’s appellate jurisdiction since the case will be governed by the provisions of the Tort Claims Act. Thus, the Commonwealth Court’s appellate jurisdiction in tort actions in which at least one party is a local agency is now exclusive.
Although I recognize that from time to time in cases of concurrent appellate jurisdiction various panels of this court have not transferred such appeals sua sponte citing either the *321failure of a party to raise the issue, Wilson v. School District of Philadelphia, 410 Pa.Super. 416, 600 A.2d 210 (1991), and Flaxman v. Burnett, 393 Pa.Super. 520, 574 A.2d 1061 (1990), or the interests of judicial economy, Brady, supra, I cannot agree that such policies serve the best interests of the parties or the ends of justice. I believe that in cases where the general assembly has reserved specifically exclusive jurisdiction over a class of appeals to the Commonwealth Court, such transfers should not be discretionary and this court should defer to this legislative determination.
I dissent to the majority’s resolution of this case on the merits as well. Although in doing so I recognize that the precedent cited by the majority in the Hudak, supra, and Coveleski, supra, decisions quite rightly support the result reached. For my part, I concur in the views expressed by my colleague Judge Olszewski in his Dissenting Opinion in Coveleski. Upon a thorough reading of Amadio, supra, I cannot find that the supreme court established viability as the point in time when a cause of action may arise for the death of a fetus. I believe Judge Olszewski’s interpretation of the holding in Amadio more correctly reflects what was intended by the supreme court.