Court Opinion

ID: 9748374
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 16:00:51.545849+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:34.958190
License: Public Domain

OPINION

Chief Justice ZAPPALA.
This case requires application of the coordinate jurisdiction rule and an examination of circumstances when the rule does not apply. We must decide whether the trial court violated the rule.
Appellant, Barbara Ann Marie Ryan, instituted a medical malpractice action in 1985 against Doctors Cattolico and DiTommaso, her family doctors, and against Doctors Berman, Rossman, and Jaffe, consulting specialists, alleging negligent failure to diagnose Cushing’s Syndrome, a rare adrenal disorder that results in elevated levels of the hormone cortisol. This had allegedly necessitated surgery in 1984 to remove a kidney and an attached adrenal tumor. In addition, her complaint alleged that the disease prolonged and exacerbated injuries she suffered when a baking rack fell on her at work in April 1982.
*159In 1984, she instituted a products liability action in regard to the work-related injury. In 1989, she settled the products liability case and executed a release of claims for injuries and their consequences arising from the accident at work.
Appellees, the defendant doctors, learned of the release and moved to amend their answers in the malpractice action to plead the release. They also moved for summary judgment, asserting that the release barred the malpractice action. Judge Gordon denied both motions. Appellees filed a motion for extraordinary relief wherein they again sought leave to amend their answers to the complaint and to move for summary judgment. The motion for extraordinary relief was heard by a different judge of the same court, the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County, who granted both motions and dismissed the malpractice action.
Appellant appealed. The Superior Court reversed. It held that the coordinate jurisdiction rule prohibited the actions of the second judge.
On remand, the case went to trial before Judge Field. During trial, the defendant doctors again moved to amend their answers to incorporate the release. Judge Field took the motion under advisement.
At the close of the plaintiffs case-in-chief, Judge Field permitted the doctors to amend their answers and to plead the release in the product liability action; she held that the release did not entirely bar the malpractice action but only the portion that occurred after the work-related accident.
The plaintiff filed post-trial motions. Judge Field granted the motions in part: she vacated the entry of nonsuit as to Doctors Cattolico and DiTommaso, Appellant’s family doctors, on the basis that the Appellant’s medical expert’s testimony had been unduly limited at trial. Judge Field denied post-trial motions pertaining to the remaining doctors, consulting specialists Berman, Rossman, and Jaffe, thus leaving in effect the nonsuit affecting them.
The plaintiff appealed. The Superior Court affirmed that portion of the trial court’s order allowing amendment of the *160defendant doctors’ answers to include the release. The court went on, however, to hold that the release barred the malpractice action against Doctors Cattolico and DiTommaso, the family doctors, as well as the action against the consulting specialists. Therefore, the Superior Court reversed the portion of the trial court’s order that held otherwise. The net result was that the plaintiff, Barbara Ann Marie Ryan, was nonsuited with respect to all the defendants and was out of court entirely.
The issue here is whether Judge Field violated the coordinate jurisdiction rule when she overruled the prior decision of Judge Gordon of the same court in granting the defendant doctors’ motion to amend their answers to the complaint.1
The coordinate jurisdiction rule prohibits a judge from overruling the decision of another judge of the same court, under most circumstances. There are, however, situations when the rule does not apply. This Court stated recently that “a later motion should not be entertained or granted when a motion of the same kind has previously been denied, unless intervening changes in facts or the law clearly warrant a new look at the question.” Goldey v. Trustees of University of Pennsylvania, 544 Pa. 150, 675 A.2d 264, 267 (1996). Nevertheless, we recognized that “where the motions differ in kind, as preliminary objections differ from ... motions for summary judgment, a judge ruling on a later motion is not precluded from granting relief although another judge has denied an earlier motion.” Id.
We clarified this in Riccio v. American Republic Ins. Co., 550 Pa. 254, 705 A.2d 422 (1997). We distinguished Riccio from Goldey on the basis that in Riccio the purposes of the rulings made by the trial judge and the post-trial motions judge were different. We concluded:
Because the post-trial motion process is distinct procedurally from that of rendering a verdict following a non-jury trial and because the considerations of the judge are different at *161each procedural stage ... we hold that the coordinate jurisdiction rule does not apply to bar a substituted judge hearing post-trial motions from correcting a mistake made by the trial judge during the trial process.
Id. at 425-26.
This case is not necessarily controlled by either Goldey or Riccio. It has some aspects akin to each of those cases, but is distinguishable in some respects from each. We will therefore consider the purposes of the rule in order to decide whether or not it should be applied in the circumstances of this case.
The salient case on the coordinate jurisdiction rule is Commonwealth v. Starr, 541 Pa. 564, 664 A.2d 1326 (1995). It states the rule as follows: “[Jjudges of coordinate jurisdiction sitting in the same case should not overrule each others’ decisions.” Id. at 1331. “Departure ... is allowed only in exceptional circumstances such as where there has been an intervening change in the controlling law, a substantial change in the facts or evidence giving rise to the dispute in the matter, or where the prior holding was clearly erroneous and would create a manifest injustice if followed.” Id. at 1332. The rule serves “not only to promote the goal of judicial economy” but also “(1) to protect the settled expectations of the parties; (2) to insure uniformity of decisions; (3) to maintain consistency during the course of a single case; (4) to effectuate the proper and streamlined administration of justice; and (5) to bring litigation to an end.” Id. at 1331. It is manifest that a judge may not lightly overrule the prior decision of another judge of the same court. In some circumstances, however, application of the rule can “thwart the very purpose the rule was intended to serve, ie., that judicial economy and efficiency be maintained.” Salerno v. Philadelphia Newspapers, Inc., 377 Pa.Super. 83, 546 A.2d 1168, 1170 (1988). Thus we said in Starr that departure from the rule of coordinate jurisdiction is allowed “where the prior holding was clearly erroneous and would create a manifest injustice if followed.” 664 A.2d at 1332. Applying the rule of coordinate jurisdiction too rigidly, therefore, can undermine the purposes which justify the rule.
*162In applying the rule, it is important to keep in mind its purposes and to recognize circumstances which make application of the rule inappropriate. In this case, as in Riccio, the procedural posture of the case was quite different at the time the two different decisions were made; the judge who presided over the trial was in a superior position to reevaluate the question of the products liability release and its relation to the medical malpractice case than was the pretrial judge who made the initial decision. During the trial of the plaintiffs case-in-chief, abundant evidence was presented which established that Appellant was seeking damages in this case for injuries suffered in the work-related products liability case; this supported the conclusion that the release in the products liability case barred the damages, or some of them, sought in this case.2 Thus, under the rationale of Riccio, the rule of coordinate jurisdiction did not apply, and it was not improper for Judge Field to permit the defendant doctors to amend their answers to the complaint to incorporate the plaintiffs release in the products liability case, even though Judge Gordon had denied permission at an earlier stage of the proceedings.
We therefore affirm the order of the Superior Court.
Former Chief Justice FLAHERTY did not participate in the decision of this case.
Justice NIGRO files a concurring opinion.
Justice SAYLOR files a concurring opinion.

. See Gerrow v. John Royle & Sons, No. 5 EAP 2001, 2002 WL 31915024 (Pa.2002), for additional discussion and application of the coordinate jurisdiction rule.

. This Court granted allocatur on a limited basis to consider only the question of whether the trial court violated the rule of coordinate jurisdiction. The question of the scope of the release and its effect on the medical malpractice litigation is not before us; we have not reviewed the Superior Court’s resolution of this question and do not disturb its holding.