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34 Pa. Commw. 361

Iudicello v. Commonwealth

Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania

Decided March 27, 1978

Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania · decided 1978-03-27

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“[I]t is plaintiffs’ position that immunity from suit is an affirmative defense and can be raised only by way of answer and new matter under Pa. R.C.P. No. 1030. They agree that this Court has, in a number of recent cases, disposed of immunity matters on preliminary objections .... However, plaintiffs distinguish these cases saying that no objection was made by the plaintiffs in those cases and objection is being raised here. Recognizing considerable merit in plaintiffs’ position on this procedural point, we can see no possible benefit to anyone in dismissing these preliminary objections and requiring an answer to be filed and having this matter more appropriately raised as new matter. When it is transparently clear on the face of the complaint, as it is here from plaintiffs’ own allegations, that the Commonwealth is immune, we will consider the matter in its present posture and thus expedite the disposition of the case.”

quoted by 1 later decision, including Feldman v. Hoffman

Relies on Commonwealth ex rel. Milk Marketing Board v. Sunnybrook Dairies, Inc. · Brey v. Commonwealth

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1978-03-27

How this case has been cited

Cited by 9 later decisions — most recently December 2014

9 state decisions

6019781980199020002010decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

¶1Opinion by

Judge Wilkinson, Jr.,

¶2Plaintiffs have instituted this trespass action against the Commonwealth" of' Pennsylvania, Department of Transportation and Jacob Kassab. They seek to recover damages for injuries suffered by one of the plaintiffs when the bicycle she was riding turned over while she was on the state highway and she was struck by a passing vehicle. It is alleged that a defect in the construction and maintenance of the state highway contributed to the cause of the'accident. ■ '

¶3Preliminary objections have been filed by the defendants on the basis of "the Commonwealth’s immunity from suit and that "the complaint fails to state a cause' of action against defendant Jacob Kassab in that the only mention of his name is in the caption of the case.

¶4Plaintiffs, both in their brief and at oral argument, candidly admit that under the present decisional law of Pennsylvania,.the. Commonwealth is immune from *363suit and that no cause of action is alleged against Jacob Kassab. They raise only two points.

¶5First, it is plaintiffs’ position that immunity from suit is an affirmative defense and can be raised only by way of answer and new matter under Pa. R.C.P. No. 1031. They agree that this Court has, in a number of recent cases, disposed of immunity matters on preliminary objections. See cases collected by Judge Rogers in footnote 1 of Brey v. Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board, 33 Pa. Commonwealth Ct. 213, 215, 381 A.2d 228, 229 (1978). However, plaintiffs distinguish these eases saying that no objection was made by the plaintiffs in those cases and objection is being raised here. Recognizing considerable merit in plaintiffs’ position on this procedural point, we can see no possible benefit to anyone in dismissing these preliminary objections and requiring an answer to be filed and having this matter more appropriately raised as new matter. When it is transparently clear on the face of the complaint, as it is here from plaintiff’s own allegations, that the Commonwealth is immune we will consider the matter in its present posture and thus expedite the disposition of the ease. See Commonwealth ex rel. Milk Marketing Board v. Sunnybrook Dairies, Inc., 32 Pa. Commonwealth Ct. 313, 379 A.2d 330 (1977).

¶6Plaintiff’s second point is that this Court should reconsider and overrule the last vestiges of the Commonwealth’s immunity from suit. As we have indicated so clearly, so recently, and so often, we are not willing to do this.

¶7Accordingly, we will enter the following

¶8Order

¶9And Now, March 27, 1978, it is ordered that the preliminary objections of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Department of Transportation, and Jacob *364Kassab be and are hereby sustained and the Complaint in Trespass filed by Dagmar Iudicello and Bruce Iudicello, her husband, be and is hereby dismissed.

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