Court Opinion

ID: 9747906
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 15:41:55.06665+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:28.475848
License: Public Domain

*676Justice SAYLOR,
dissenting.
I support Mr. Justice Eakin’s position favoring a bright-line rule requiring parties to name an appropriate Commonwealth defendant or defendants in the caption of a complaint when pursuing actions for money damages against a sovereign entity. The Legislature has manifested its clear intent to protect the public fisc by providing for statutory sovereign immunity and crafting only targeted immunity exceptions relative to Commonwealth agencies, see 42 Pa.C.S. § 8522, and this Court has honored this intention by construing such exceptions narrowly. See, e.g., Dean v. Commonwealth, Dep’t of Transp., 561 Pa. 503, 508, 751 A.2d 1130, 1132 (2000). In the circumstances of this case, I agree with the majority that there is a fair likelihood that PennDOT was on actual notice of Appellees’ intention to proceed against it. In this arena, however, I do not support the fashioning of an evaluative scheme of determining when a party who has failed to timely name a necessary Commonwealth defendant nevertheless can proceed against the sovereign.