Court Opinion

ID: 9753253
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 19:05:28.557695+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:27:32.772762
License: Public Domain

SAYLOR, Justice,
concurring.
I join the majority in holding that delay damages are properly aggregated with a verdict and validly within the scope of the liability borne jointly and severally by joint tortfeasors. I also join in overruling Woods v. Commonwealth, Dep’t of Transp., 531 Pa. 295, 612 A.2d 970 (1992), in which the Court held that the judicial rule authorizing delay damage awards surmounted the express legislative limitation on damages awardable against the Commonwealth in a tort action. On this latter point, I would acknowledge Mr. Justice Cappy’s legitimate concern for the doctrine of stare decisis. Nevertheless I would emphasize that it is most critical that the Court carefully examine, and where necessary reexamine, its decision making in matters in which it seeks to maintain an exclusive assertion of its power, thereby preventing the General Assembly from performing its own constitutional role in the development of significant areas of Pennsylvania’s substantive law. Cf. United States v. N.Y. Rayon Importing Co., 329 U.S. 654, 663, 67 S.Ct. 601, 606, 91 L.Ed. 577 (1947)(stat-*14ing that “the immunity of the United States from liability for interest is not to be waived by policy arguments ...[;] [cjourts lack the power to award interest against the United States on the basis of what they think is or is not sound policy”). Indeed, for the same reasons, I believe that the Court’s assertion of exclusivity in the area of prejudgment interest generally as manifested in Laudenberger v. Port Auth. of Allegheny County, 496 Pa. 52, 436 A.2d 147 (1981), should be open to a similar reevaluation. In my view, a substantial argument can be made that Laudenberger's approach to the determination of whether the Court’s rulemaking complies with Article V, Section 10(c) of the Pennsylvania Constitution, which depends integrally upon the weight of the Court’s own policy objective in promulgating a rule, should be abandoned, in favor of an assessment focusing more closely upon the degree and directness of the rule’s substantive impact.1
Mr. Justice CASTILLE joins this concurring opinion.

. This approach would seem particularly appropriate, since Article V, Section 10(c) speaks explicitly in terms of effect and not purpose in providing that the Court’s rules shall "neither abridge, enlarge, nor modify the substantive rights of any litigant.” Pa. Const., art. V, § 10(c). Thus it can be posited that the framers of the Constitution limited the type of power afforded to the narrow area of true procedural rulemaking. Cf. Monessen Southwestern Ry. Co. v. Morgan, 486 U.S. at 331, 336, 108 S.Ct. 1837, 1843, 100 L.Ed.2d 349 (1988)(stating that "prejudgment interest constitutes too substantial a part of a defendant's potential liability under [the Federal Employers' Liability Act] for this Court to accept a State's classification of a provision such as Rule 238 as a mere 'local rule of procedure' ”).