Court Opinion

ID: 9636558
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 14:33:16.255362+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:09:46.867757
License: Public Domain

ZAPPALA, Justice,
dissenting.
I dissent. To my mind, the majority’s method of construing the phrase “person responsible for the child’s welfare” is backward. The majority begins with the interpretation developed in the 1989 Superior Court decision in Commonwealth v. Bethlehem, 391 Pa.Super. 162, 570 A.2d 563 (1989), alloc. denied, 525 Pa. 610, 577 A.2d 542 (1990), then dismisses a significant segment of that interpretation, and ends by overruling the construction given to the same phrase in the 1982 Commonwealth Court decision in Pennsylvania State Education Association v. Commonwealth, Department of Public Welfare, 68 Pa.Cmwlth. 279, 449 A.2d 89 (1982).
In Lock Estate, 431 Pa. 251, 263, 244 A.2d 677, 682-83 (1968), we wrote
[i]t has been held, and rightly so, that where a decision of the Superior Court construing a statute was never modified by the Supreme Court, the presumption was that when the legislature subsequently enacted a similar statute dealing with the same subject matter, the legislature intended the same construction to be placed on the language of the subsequent statute____ Whether this presumption is derived from an interpretation of the Superior Court as a “court of last resort” under the [Statutory Construction Act] [now found at 1 Pa.C.S. § 1922(4) ], or from a common-sense view of the workings of the legislature really makes no difference. The intention of the legislature is obviously to *129adopt the construction placed upon the word ... by the Superior Court. (Citations omitted.)
Following this reasoning, it should be presumed that in 1985 when the legislature enacted the statute of limitations tolling provision found at 42 Pa.C.S. § 5554(3), it intended the same construction to be given to the phrase “person responsible for the child’s welfare” as had been given by the Commonwealth Court in Pennsylvania State Education Association v. Commonwealth three years earlier. The P.S.E.A case involved construction of the Child Protective Services Law, Act of November 26, 1975, P.L. 438, as amended, particularly the definition of an “abused child” as
[a] child under 18 years of age who exhibits evidence of serious physical or mental injury which is not explained by the available medical history as being accidental, sexual abuse, sexual exploitation or serious physical neglect if the injury, abuse or neglect has been caused by the acts or omissions____ (Emphasis added.)1
The similarity in both the subject matter and the language between the Child Protective Services Law and the tolling provision later enacted at 42 Pa.C.S. § 5554(3) is readily apparent. Indeed, the legislature duplicated not only the phrase in question here, but the entire passage descriptive of the relevant personages: “of the child’s parents or by a person responsible for the child’s welfare, or any individual residing in the same home as the child, or a paramour of the child’s parent.” Proper analysis, then, should begin with the presumption that the legislature intended to adopt the construction of the Commonwealth Court, which had held that “the clear import” of the language of the Child Protective Services Law was “that persons responsible for the child’s welfare customarily provide such matters as housing, clothing, furnishings, income and medical care for children in their care.... ” 68 Pa.Cmwlth. at 283, 449 A.2d at 92. Finding no indication that the legislature intended that a different construction *130apply to the later statute, I believé that proper analysis should likewise end with this conclusion.
I also find fault with the reasoning by which the majority truncates the interpretation developed in Commonwealth v. Bethlehem. The court in Bethlehem, faced with the task of explaining the meaning of “person responsible for the child’s welfare,” “construe[d] the provision to apply to persons under whose permanent or temporary control the parent(s) or legal guardian(s) have placed a child, in other words, those who stand in loco parentis to the child.” 391 Pa.Super. at 168, 570 A.2d at 566. (Emphasis added.) The majority, in essence, dismisses the emphasized language as dictum, but chooses to retain and follow the rest of the language, “persons under whose permanent or temporary control the parent(s) or legal guardian(s) have placed a child.” The rest of the ’ language, however, is also, strictly speaking, dictum, in that it was not absolutely necessary to the decision in Bethlehem. The defendant in Bethlehem was the uncle of the victim, visiting in the victim’s home with the victim’s parents. Not only was he not “in loco parentis” to the child, but the parents had not even “placed the child under his permanent or temporary control.”
The majority finds it significant that the legisláture knew the meaning of the term “in loco parentis” and yet chose not to include it.2 Having rejected this portion of the Bethlehem analysis, the majority, without explanation, nevertheless elects to accept the remaining (and now less restrictive) interpretation of a “person responsible for the child’s welfare” as “one who has ‘permanent or temporary custody and control’ of the *131child.” It should go without saying, however, that removal of the “in loco parentis” clause from the language borrowed from Bethlehem changes the entire sense of that language, to the extent that it cannot be claimed with any certainty or confidence that the Superior Court panel in Bethlehem would have used the phrase “permanent or temporary custody and control” without it.
Stripped of the flawed citations to authority, then, what remains of the majority’s analysis is nothing more than the unsupported assertion that the legislature intended “person responsible for the child’s welfare” to mean “person having permanent or temporary custody and control of the child.” This, even though this same language had been construed in a more limited way by the judiciary prior to the legislature’s deliberate repetition of it in the statute presently before the Court.
For the reasons stated, I would reverse the Order of the Superior Court. Finding the appellant not to be within the class of persons covered by the language of 42 Pa.C.S. § 5554(3) so as to toll the statute of limitations, I would reinstate the Order of the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County granting the Motion to Dismiss and discharging the defendant.

. The Child Protective Services Law was subsequently codified at 23 Pa.C.S. § 6301 et seq. The statute now defines the term "child abuse” rather than “abused child,” but employs virtually the same language. See 23 Pa.C.S. § 6303.

. The majority neglects to note the citation, following the critical language in Bethlehem, to 1 Pa.C.S. § 1903(b)., The rule of statutory construction found there states that, "[gjeneral words shall be construed to take their meanings and be restricted by preceding particular words.” (Emphasis added.) The court in Bethlehem thereby "explained” its use of the “in loco parentis” comparison by reference to the fact that "person responsible for the child's welfare” followed the particular word "parents.” It should be noted that not only does the word "parents” immediately precede the words "person responsible for the child's welfare,” the entire phrase appears as one clause which is then set off from the other types of persons identified, i.e., "any individual residing in the same home as the child” and "a paramour of the child’s parent.”