Court Opinion

ID: 9700506
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 21:33:22.471218+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:10.017247
License: Public Domain

DISSENTING OPINION BY
Judge SMITH-RIBNER.
I respectfully dissent from the determination of the majority to affirm the order of the Court of Common Pleas of Washington County holding that John Pettit, District Attorney of Washington County, is entitled to indemnification by the County for his payment of a judgment entered against him in the U.S. District Court, Western District of Pennsylvania (District Court), and affirmed by the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals (Third Circuit). Pettit was found responsible for violating Frederick A. Brilla’s federal civil rights and was assessed nominal damages of $1 and punitive damages of $50,000 (reduced upon the trial court’s remittitur from a jury award of $100,000) as well as attorney’s fees and costs. The majority’s determination of entitlement to indemnification rests primarily upon its narrow in*808terpretation of conduct described in one single phrase in the jury interrogatories in the federal trial: “malicious, wanton or oppressive”. The circumstances of this case show that there is no question whatsoever that the jury determined that Pet-tit engaged in intentional conduct that resulted in a deprivation of Brilla’s civil rights.
I
Certain key points must be emphasized. On the same day as the original seizure of Brilla’s property at issue in this case, September 13, 1989, a rental agreement was entered into between Aunt Mini Self Storage as Landlord and District Attorney of Washington County as Tenant. Ex. B; Reproduced Record (R.R.) 32a. The opinion of District Court Judge Robert J. Cindrich, ruling on Pettit’s motions for judgment as a matter of law or new trial and for remittitur of jury verdict and Bril-la’s motion for attorney’s fees and costs, stated that the evidence showed that Pettit personally paid storage fees for storage of Brilla’s property for almost seven years. In October 1991 the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office filed a forfeiture action in common pleas court under Sections 6801 and 6802 of the Judicial Code, as amended, 42 Pa.C.S. §§ 6801 and 6802, and in February 1995 the court of common pleas dismissed that action as untimely. The District Court noted a presumption that the order was sent to the District Attorney’s Office as well as the Attorney General’s Office.
On April 17, 1996, Judge Debbie O’Dell Seneca of the common pleas court issued an order for certain lawn and garden equipment among the seized property to be returned to Rt. 19 Mower Center on its motion filed at the docket of the forfeiture proceeding, and that property was returned. On April 25, 1996, Judge O’Dell Seneca ordered that the remaining personalty that belonged to Brilla be returned to him within 90 days, except for any weapons, which were to be destroyed. The District Court pointed out that there was evidence discrediting Pettit’s claimed lack of knowledge of the April 25, 1996 order, namely, that one of his assistant district attorneys was ordered to appear at a hearing in connection with that order and that Pettit’s office customarily receives copies of all orders filed with the clerk of courts of the County that pertain to the return of property.
The property was not returned to Brilla pursuant to the April 1996 order. There is no dispute that some six months after the order the property was transferred from the private storage facility to the Washington County Jail and to the Office of the District Attorney’s Drug Task Force. Brilla filed suit in federal district court in June 1998 claiming violation of his constitutional rights for the failure to return his property, and he sought compensatory and punitive damages. The matter was tried before District Court Judge Cindrich over four days in June 2001, and the jury found Pettit liable for violating Brilla’s constitutional rights and awarded no compensatory damages, $1 in nominal damages and $100,000 in punitive damages. The District Court denied the motions for judgment as a matter of law or for a new trial but granted the motion for remittitur in part and reduced the jury award to $50,000. Pettit appealed, and the Third Circuit affirmed in an unpublished opinion authored by Third Circuit Judge Ruggero J. Aldisert.
As all parties recognize, Section 8548(a) of the Judicial Code, 42 Pa.C.S. § 8548(a), related to indemnity by local agency generally, provides that when an action is brought against an employee of a local agency for damages on account of injury to *809person or property and the employee has provided written notice, the local agency shall indemnify the employee for payment of any judgment if “it is judicially determined that an act of the employee caused the injury and such act was, or that the employee in good faith reasonably believed that such act was, within the scope of his office or duties.... ” Section 8550, 42 Pa. C.S. § 8550, related to willful misconduct, states that in an action against a local agency or employee thereof for damages on account of injury caused by an act of an employee, if “it is judicially determined that the act of the employee caused the injury and that such act constituted a crime, actual fraud, actual malice or willful misconduct, the provisions of ... seetion[ ] 8548 (relating to indemnity) ... shall not apply.”
The majority concludes that there is sufficient ambiguity in this case such that it has not been “judicially determined” that the acts for which Pettit was found liable constituted “willful misconduct” within the meaning of Section 8550. To reach this conclusion, the majority relies upon the decisions in Wiehagen v. Borough of North Braddock, 527 Pa. 517, 594 A.2d 303 (1991), Renk v. City of Pittsburgh, 537 Pa. 68, 641 A.2d 289 (1994), and Kuzel v. Krause, 658 A.2d 856 (Pa.Cmwlth.1995), and upon the phrasing of a particular interrogatory to the jury in the federal court trial and statements in the federal court opinions.
In Wiehagen a police officer struck an arrestee once when the arrestee attempted to strike him, knocking the arrestee to the ground. In the arrestee’s civil rights suit in federal court, the jury awarded compensatory damages of $7500 plus attorney’s fees and costs, finding that while acting in the scope of his duties the officer responded “instinctively” and used more force than was necessary. The issues involved were whether indemnification under Section 8548(a) applied to judgments other than those for state tort actions for which local agency immunity is waived under Section 8542 of the Judicial Code, as amended, 42 Pa.C.S. § 8542, and whether indemnification applies to attorney’s fees and costs. The Supreme Court affirmed this Court’s determination that indemnification applies to any judgment that arises from conduct within the scope of an employee’s employment, and it ruled also that indemnification includes reasonable attorney’s fees, costs and expenses. No issue of “willful misconduct” was involved in the analysis.
In Renk a police officer responded to a request for assistance from a bus driver outside a police station and removed a passenger with an expired bus pass. As he took the passenger inside there was a scuffle and the officer’s elbow struck the passenger’s mouth. He was detained in a cell while the officer wrote the citation, which was dismissed when the officer failed to appear at the hearing. In the passenger’s later federal court suit, the jury found in favor of the officer on a claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1981, but it found the officer hable on state claims for assault, battery and false imprisonment and awarded compensatory damages of $2500 and punitive damages of $5000. On the appeal in the indemnification proceeding, the Supreme Court noted that “willful misconduct” was not addressed in Wiehagen. It quoted from this Court’s decision in King v. Breach, 115 Pa.Cmwlth. 355, 540 A.2d 976 (1988), stating that willful misconduct for the purposes of tort law had been held to mean conduct whereby the actor desired to bring about the result that followed or at least was aware that it was substantially certain to follow, citing Evans v. Philadelphia Transp. Co., 418 Pa. 567, 212 A.2d 440 (1965), and further stated that “the term ‘willful misconduct’ is *810synonymous with the term ‘intentional tort’.” Renk, 537 Pa. at 75, 641 A.2d at 293. The court discounted the prece-dential value of King because that case did not involve police conduct.
The Supreme Court reviewed the elements of assault, battery and false imprisonment and then observed: “It is conceivable that a jury could find a police officer liable for those torts under circumstances which demonstrate that the officer did not intentionally use unnecessary and excessive force, or did not deliberately arrest a person knowing that he lacked probable cause to do so.” Renk, 537 Pa. at 76-77, 641 A.2d at 293-294. It was unclear, the court stated, whether the federal jury in that case determined that the officer intentionally used excessive force or arrested knowing that he lacked probable cause. The court added: “Nor is the award of punitive damages sufficient to establish willful misconduct, since reckless conduct may be sufficient to support such an award.” Id. at 77, 641 A.2d at 294 (citing Rizzo v. Haines, 520 Pa. 484, 555 A.2d 58 (1989)).
This Court interpreted Renk in Kuzel, where part-time police officers who were laid off after they began collecting workers’ compensation benefits filed suit alleging wrongful discharge, and one of the township commissioners who voted for the layoff was found liable by a jury. In the indemnification action, the Court pointed out the Supreme Court’s reversal in Renk, and it stated: “In effect the Supreme Court found that ‘willful misconduct,’ as used in 42 Pa.C.S. § 8550, means “willful misconduct aforethought.’ ” Kuzel, 658 A.2d at 860. The Court held that to defeat indemnification it would be necessary to show that the commissioner knew or should have known that it was improper to terminate someone for receiving workers’ compensation and did so anyway and that there was no evidence that the commissioner held hable knew that such a termination was improper.
II
In this case, the majority and Pettit focus on two interrogatories posed to the jury in the federal case, to which the jury said ‘Tes”:
1. Did [District Attorney Pettit] deprive [Brilla] of his Constitutional rights by unlawfully depriving him of the use of his property?
4. If you answered ‘Tes” to Question No. 1, do you find that [District Attorney Pettit’s] conduct was malicious, wanton or oppressive?
Ex. A; R.R. 61a-62a. As they note, the instructions to the jury included a statement that the first element that Brilla had to prove by a preponderance of the evidence was that Pettit took custody of Bril-la’s property and intentionally performed acts either, one, to' permanently deprive him of the use of such property or, two, to deprive him of the use for an unreasonable length of time. The District Court stated that the jury could only find Pettit responsible, i.e., liable at all, if it found that he deprived Brilla of constitutional rights “and that his conduct was intentional or in reckless disregard of the plaintiffs rights.” Transcript of Jury Trial Proceedings June 13, 2001, p. 676; R.R. 115a. The court elaborated: “An act is intentional if it is done knowingly, that is, voluntarily and deliberately], not because of mistake, accident, negligence or other innocent reason. An act done with reckless disregard is one done in callous disregard or indifference to a plaintiffs constitutionally protected rights.” Id. at 676-677; R.R. 115a-116a.
In regard to nominal damages, the District Court charged:
*811If you find that the defendant intentionally performed acts which deprived the plaintiff of his rights under the Constitution of the United States but you do not find that the plaintiff has sustained any actual damages, then you may return a verdict for the plaintiff in some nominal sum, such as $1.
Id. at 680; R.R. 121a (emphasis added). In regard to punitive damages, the District Court instructed as follows:
The purpose of an award of punitive damages is, first, to punish a wrongdoer for misconduct and, second, to warn others against doing the same.
In this case, if you find that the defendant intentionally deprived the plaintiff of his rights under the Constitution of the United States and that such act was maliciously, wantonly or oppressively done, you may award punitive damages against the defendant.
It is not necessary for the plaintiff to present direct evidence of malicious intent on the part of a defendant in order to justify an award of punitive damages against that defendant. Such intent may be inferred by you from the nature of the acts committed by the defendant and from the facts and circumstances surrounding such acts.
An act is malicious when it includes ill will in the sense of spite or in a reckless and oppressive disregard of the plaintiff’s constitutionally protected rights.
An act is wantonly done if it is done in reckless or callous disregard of or indifference to the plaintiffs constitutionally protected rights.
An act is oppressively done if done in a way or manner which injures or damages or otherwise violates the plaintiffs constitutionally protected rights with unnecessary harshness or severity, as by misuse or abuse of authority or power, or by taking advantage of some weakness or disability or misfortune of the plaintiff.
Id. at 681-688; R.R. 122a-124a (emphasis added).
The majority quotes with emphasis the following statements in the District Court’s opinion: “As we properly instructed the jury, punitive damages may be awarded when a defendant deprives a plaintiff of a constitutionally protected right maliciously or in reckless or callous disregard of, or indifference to such protected right.” Slip op. at 4; R.R. 130a. The District Court summarized Pettit’s version of events at trial and in his post-trial motion, presenting himself as blameless, and stated: “Although we recognize that this is Pettit’s version of events, there was evidence from which a jury reasonably could have found that he acted in reckless or callous disregard of, or indifference to Brilla’s property rights.” Id. at 5; R.R. 131a. It added: “In sum, when viewing the evidence in a light most favorable to Brilla and giving him the advantage of every fair and reasonable inference, we cannot find that there was insufficient evidence from which a jury reasonably could find that Pettit acted with reckless or callous disregard of, or indifference to Brilla’s constitutionally protected rights.” Id. at 6-7; R.R. 132-133a.
The majority quotes the following from the Third Circuit’s opinion:
The jury could certainly infer from Pet-tit’s involvement — as an attorney, no less — that he should have known that a forfeiture proceeding could never take 11 years to come to fruition, and that he at some point should have questioned whether he was properly continuing to be the “stakeholder” of Brilla’s property. His indifference to the issue of whether he was justified in keeping such proper*812ty gave rise to the award of punitive damages.
Slip op. at 3; R.R. 174a. From all of this Pettit argues, and the majority agrees, that the determination of liability for punitive damages because Pettit’s conduct was “malicious, wanton or oppressive” means that the jury could have determined that Pettit acted only “wantonly,” i.e., recklessly or in callous disregard of or indifference to Brilla’s property rights rather than willfully or intentionally. This conclusion most clearly is not justified by the record.
As the Controller of Washington County, the Board of Commissioners and the County (together, County) note, the District Court in discussing the motion for remittitur, stated in its opinion: “The evidence in this case, as described above, supports a finding that Pettit acted with reckless or callous disregard of, or indifference to Brilla’s constitutionally protected property rights, conduct on an equal footing with malice.” Slip op. at 13; R.R. 139a (emphasis added). This conclusion is consistent with the definition of “malicious” provided in the jury instruction, which includes a concept of reckless disregard of a plaintiffs rights, and it satisfies the requirement of Section 8550 of the Judicial Code that it be “judicially determined ... that such act constituted ... actual malice or willful misconduct....” The County additionally stresses that the court of common pleas, while focusing on and emphasizing the word “or” in the phrasing of Interrogatory No. 4 (“conduct was malicious, wanton or oppressive”), ignores the statement in the jury instruction quoted above from R.R. 122a.
The common pleas court’s opinion concludes its discussion on this point as follows:
In the federal case, the parties stipulated that Pettit was acting under color of the authority of the Commonwealth in his dealings with Brilla’s property. Trial transcript Page 676.
Reviewing the record in the federal case, this Court finds Pettit’s conduct on which the judgment was based was judicially determined to be under the color of state law and within the scope of his office and that Pettit reasonably believed that he was acting within the scope of his duties as district attorney.
Trial Court Opinion, slip op. at 11-12. The ultimate conclusion of the common pleas court finds no support in the record of the District Court proceedings. As the District Court explained in its charge, acting “under color of state law” is an element that a plaintiff must prove in order to establish a claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The stipulation on this point simply indicates that Pettit was clothed with the authority of the state and was not acting as a private person. Although Pet-tit advanced the defense that he reasonably believed that he was acting within the scope of his duties as district attorney, the jury’s verdict shows that it simply did not credit his assertions. While Pettit’s dealings with the property in the course of the criminal proceedings commenced under the scope of his authority, his later actions and developments rendered such conduct beyond the scope of his duties.
One of the cases upon which the County relies is Reitz v. County of Bucks, 125 F.3d 139 (3d Cir.1997). There a great deal of property was seized in the course of a raid on a farm for a drug arrest. Family members of the person arrested petitioned the court of common pleas for return of items, and the court ordered certain property returned forthwith. Some items were returned, but the bulk of the property remained in the custody of the district attorney. Following a jury verdict in a forfeiture proceeding in October 1993 and an order to prosecutors to return property, it *813still was not returned for approximately one year. In concluding that the facts defeated an assertion of qualified immunity in the resulting civil rights and state tort action, the Third Circuit stated:
Although no statute or constitutional provision explicitly requires that the District Attorney’s Office comply with a court order directing the return of improperly seized property within a reasonable amount of time, it is incomprehensible that a prosecutor faced with such an order would not know that he should comply timely and that a failure to do so would undermine the authority of the court.
Reitz, 125 F.3d at 147.
Despite certain differences from the matter sub judice, this general principle does indeed apply here. In addition, as the County points out, the period of deprivation involved here is much longer than in Reitz. It was eleven years after seizure and over four years after the April 25, 1996 order for the return of Brilla’s property until the ultimate return of most of the property during pendency of the federal court action. The fact that the jury awarded no compensatory damages but $100,000 in punitive damages demonstrates that it intended to punish wrongdoing rather than merely to reprimand Pettit’s indifference. In contrast with the brief episode involved in Renk, the duration of the period of violation of civil rights in the present matter supports a determination of “willful misconduct aforethought” under the interpretation of Renk that was provided in Kuzel. For these reasons, the majority’s decision allowing for indemnification in this case is in error, and I therefore dissent.