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January 2025 Docket Review

Posted by Corrie Woods | Jan 31, 2025 | 0 Comments

This month on SCOPAblog, the Court issued 6 opinions and 10 allocatur grants.

On the opinion side, I'm most interested in Estate of Herold, in which the Court identifies a distinction between workers' injuries under the Occupational Disease Act and those under the Workers' Compensation Act (WCA), concluding that where the former cause disability or death outside the statute of limitations, the employee may proceed in tort, unlike in the context of the WCA.  In a 5-2 opinion authored by Chief Justice Todd, the Court found that this difference in treatment was required by a difference of language in the statutes, among numerous other indicators of legislative intent, albeit Justices Wecht and Brobson authored dissents.  The decision is interesting not only for its holding as such, but also for the fact that it is yet another point in a constellation of cases in which the Court has been willing, if not eager, to recognize a broader version of workers' rights and tort liability than earlier courts have been, which has been perhaps its most consistent feature in the last decade. 

But perhaps more interestingly, the coalitions on these and other civil-law issues are usually malleable.  Although this opinion rests on the votes of the Chief Justice and Justices Donohue, Dougherty, Mundy, and McCaffery, and curiously drew dissents from two Justices who are generally considered fairly ideologically far apart, the fact is that other cases rest on other coalitions, rarely the same coalition twice, and rarely on partisan lines.  This is in stark contrast to the mythos out there, and will be important to keep in mind this year.

On the allocatur side, I'm most interested in Baxter, which may serve not only to finally answer the questions about mail-in balloting that have dogged Pennsylvania elections for now a decade, but also to provide more guidance as to just how potent the 2018-revitalized Pennsylvania Constitutional right to Free and Equal Elections is.  The issues granted, however, may give politicos some pause.  The court, over Justice Donohue's objection, declined to revisit the issue of whether the dating requirements for those ballots are mandatory.  (An earlier decision concluded that they were, but did not agree on a rationale.)  Instead, the court will decide whether the dating requirements violate Free and Equal Elections Clause, and, if so, whether the underlying legislation's non-severability clause is implicated, shuttering all of the 2020 election legislation in its entirety.  For some, this will feel like a no-win situation.  On the one hand, if the requirements, which have little meaningful purpose, are deemed to be constitutionally valid, approximately 1-2% of mail-in and absentee ballots are likely doomed each election.  And although the gap is decreasing, this currently translates to a loss of about half a point for Democratic candidates.  On the other hand, if they are deemed to be constitutionally invalid, the entire mail-in ballot system (along with longer voter-registration periods, absentee-ballot counting periods, and the end for straight-ticket voting, among other things) may be in jeopardy, which has a similar effect.  From this author's perspective, keeping the question about whether the dating requirements were mandatory in the first place on the table, particularly bearing in mind the canon requiring construction of statutes away from constitutional violations, might have provided at least an escape hatch for those fairly significant outcomes.  

Precedential Opinions

Jackiw v. Soft Pretzel Franchise (WCAB), 3 EAP 2024 (Majority Opinion by Mundy, J.) (clarifying the statutory formula for workers' compensation for dismemberment injuries)

West Rockhill Twp v. DEP,  21-22 EAP 2023 & 77-78 MAP 2023 (Majority Opinion by Wecht, J.) (holding a challenge to a DEP permitting decision under the federal Natural Gas Act may proceed before the Environmental Hearing Board in lieu of federal court)

CKHS, Inc. v. Prospect Med Hldgs, 117-118 MAP 2023 (Majority Opinion by Mundy, J.) (holding the lower court misapplied the standard of review for a preliminary injunction in an action involving the conversion of a hospital into a mental-health hospital)

Commonwealth v. Crosby, 30 WAP 2023 (Majority Opinion by Wecht, J.) (clarifying the element of resisting arrest that a defendant's "resistance" require substantial force to overcome in light of jurisprudential confusion)

Commonwealth v. Roberts, 16 WAP 2023 (Majority Opinion by Wecht, J.) (holding that there is a mens rea of knowledge for failing to comply with sexual offender requirements) 

In Re: Estate of W. Herold, 22 WAP 2023 (Majority Opinion by Todd, C.J.) (holding that an employee who contracts an occupational disease and suffers disability or death beyond the Occupational Disease Act's statute of limitations may proceed in tort)

Allocatur Grants

Commonwealth v. Brown, 208 WAL 2024 (granting review to consider whether a third party's confession to a fourth party may constitute a newly-discovered fact for purposes of the time-bar provisions of the PCRA)

Solano  v. ZHB E. Bradford Twp, 212-215 MAL 2024 (granting review to consider the legality and substance of application of de minimis doctrine to a use variance)

Lutheran Home at Kane v. DHS, 321 MAL 2024 (granting review to consider the continuing vitality of administrative deference doctrines in light of federal decisions restricting their federal counterparts)

Commonwealth v. Phillips, 438-439 MAL 2024 (granting review to consider an issue related to credit for time served)

Commonwealth v. Hawkins-Davenport, 246 EAL 2024 (granting review to consider whether the mere view of a firearm warrants an officer in the belief that a motorist is armed and dangerous and thereby justifies a "frisk" of the vehicle's interior cabin)

Commonwealth v. Coles, 234 EAL 2024 (granting review to consider whether proximity to an individual smoking marijuana warrants an officer in the belief that one is engaged in crime and thereby justifies an investigative detention)

Baxter v. Phila. Bd. of Elections, 395-396 EAL 2024 (granting review to consider whether the Election Code's mail-in and absentee ballot dating requirements violate the Free and Equal Elections Clause and, if so, whether the whole statute must be invalidated due to its nonseverability clause)

Commonwealth v. Vance, 290 MAL 2024 (granting review to consider admissibility of officer testimony regarding Google GPS practices and data)

In Re: M.L.R., 559 MAL 2024 (granting review to consider the scope of a trial court's authority to override the legal requirements of the Adoption Act in the best interests of a child)

Commonwealth v. Peters, 409 MAL 2024 (granting review to consider the proper formulation of the mental state of malice in the context of a homicide)

About the Author

Corrie Woods

Corrie is our primary litigator, and focuses his practice on appellate, criminal, and post-conviction cases. Corrie also authors the firm's blog, SCOPABlog, which is the only regularly updated blog providing comprehensive coverage of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania's docket. Corrie became an a...

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