Spencer v. Johnson

249 A.3d 529

Keith SPENCER, Appellant

v.Cleveland JOHNSON, Tina Gainer Johnson, and Philadelphia Joint Board Workers United, SEIU

Keith Spencer

v.Cleveland Johnson; Tina Gainer Johnson and Philadelphia Joint Board Workers United, SEIU

Appeal of: Tina Gainer Johnson

Keith Spencer, Appellant

v.Cleveland Johnson, Tina Gainer Johnson, and Philadelphia Joint Board Workers United, SEIU

Keith Spencer

v.Cleveland Johnson and Tina Gainer Johnson and Philadelphia Joint Board Workers United, SEIU

Appeal of: Philadelphia Joint Board Workers United, SEIU

No. 2011 EDA 2019

No. 2036 EDA 2019

No. 2040 EDA 2019

No. 2080 EDA 2019

Superior Court of Pennsylvania.

Argued August 12, 2020.

Filed: March 18, 2021

Reargument Denied: May 24, 2021

Audrey J. Copeland and David F. White, King of Prussia, for Tina G. Johnson.

Ramon A. Areola and Joseph L. Messa Jr., Philadelphia, for Keith Spencer.

Jeffrey M. Brenner, Karyn D. Rienzi, and John C. Sullivan, Philadelphia, and MaryEllen T. Conroy. Blue Bell, for Philadelphia Joint Board Workers United, SEIU.

Daryl E. Christopher, Harrisburg, for PA Association for Justice, amicus curiae.

BEFORE: PANELLA, P.J., McLAUGHLIN, J.,^* and McCAFFERY, J.

OPINION BY PANELLA, P.J.:

This consolidated appeal arises out of an automobile accident that occurred in West Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. On October 16, 2014, the car that Cleveland Johnson ("Cleveland") was driving struck Appellant/Cross-Appellee, Keith Spencer ("Spencer"), a pedestrian, as he lawfully crossed the street. Spencer suffered permanent, debilitating injuries, which have severely diminished his quality of life. Central to this appeal is the extent to which the owner of the car that Cleveland was driving should be held liable for Spencer's injuries. The owner, Appellee/Cross-Appellant, Philadelphia Joint Board Workers United, SEIU ("PJB"), provided the car to its employee, Appellee/Cross-Appellant, Tina Johnson ("Tina"), who is Cleveland's wife.¹

The parties do not dispute two facts: (1) Spencer was not at fault, and (2) Cleveland was negligent in his operation of the vehicle. However, the parties disagree as to whether Tina was negligent in allowing Cleveland to operate her work vehicle, and whether PJB was negligent under the laws of agency and vicarious liability in failing to maintain reasonable policies and regulations for the vehicles it provides to employees like Tina.

As will be discussed in detail below, Spencer instituted a civil action against Cleveland, Tina, and PJB, and the matter eventually went to trial. The jury found that all three defendants shared liability for Spencer's injuries, and apportioned that liability among the defendants. Spencer sought to mold the verdict to make PJB jointly and severally liable² for Tina's negligence. The trial court denied Spencer's request. Because we conclude that Spencer is legally entitled to this relief, we are constrained to reverse the trial court's denial of Spencer's post-trial motion to mold the verdict, and we consequently remand for further proceedings.

The essential facts relevant to this appeal are largely undisputed.³ Where there are factual disputes between the parties, we will highlight them. However, one of the parties' primary disputes concerns the legal consequences of PJB's act in providing Tina with a car. PJB is small labor union organization that covers the Philadelphia and South Jersey areas. Tina initially volunteered at the union when she worked at an airport magazine shop, but later became a fulltime, paid employee.

In 2012, PJB provided Tina with a company car, a 2009 silver Ford Escape, because PJB considered these vehicles "absolutely essential to the work of organizers and business representatives" since "employees could be required to drive out to job sites at any hour of day or night, twenty-four hours a day." Trial Court Opinion, 6/24/2019, at 5 (internal quotations marks omitted).⁴ The car was considered part of the job so unless someone proved "unfit," the employee would be given a car. N.T., 1/22/2019 p.m., at 51.

PJB's main requirement for providing a company car was that the employee must have a valid driver's license. See Trial Court Opinion, 6/24/2019, at 5. PJB also considered the employee's past performance, her reputation, and her work ethic. See id.

PJB's chief of staff at the time was Richard Minter.⁵ Minter stated that employees are not "automatically given a car on day one, and that PJB vetted its employees by making them prove their credibility through their work performance and history." Id. , at 4 n.1 (quotation marks omitted). Minter communicated that "the process was complex and was not taken lightly, but provided no other details about the process other than running the driver's license." Id. (record citation and quotation marks omitted).

Notably, PJB did not conduct an interview or a background check prior to issuing the car to Tina. See id. , at 4. Lynne Fox,⁶ the PJB manager, indicated that when Tina started volunteering at the union, Tina was still working at the airport, which conducts "background checks" that were more specific than what PJB would have done and therefore, PJB "relied on those checks." N.T., 1/22/2019 p.m., at 51. Fox never asked Tina to "submit any type of authorization in order to obtain all the records" from the former employer that would have given Fox the background information because, as she put it, the employer "might just have verified it." Id. , at 52. Moreover, per Fox, PJB did not perform an independent investigation of Tina's background prior to providing the car because Tina worked for the union "for a number of years." Id. , at 53.

PJB's secretary and treasurer, Mildred Saldana, indicated the union did not have a written employee handbook at that time and "did not provide their vehicle usage policy to employees in writing; [rather,] they verbally instructed employees that the only permissible personal use of company cars was for commuting to and from work and job sites." Trial Court Opinion, 6/24/2019, at 5 (quotation marks omitted). "PJB supervised company car usage only through employee-submitted time sheets, mileage logs, and expense reports to cover costs like highway tolls. The auditing was mostly for purposes of compliance with Internal Revenue Service and Department of Labor regulations and for employer reimbursement." Id. , at 6.

Fox indicated that "it was the union's philosophy, as well as the philosophy of other unions in the community, that company [car] use was not strictly monitored because if they could not trust a union rep [representative] with a car, they had no business trusting the employee to represent union members." Id. , at 5-6. When asked, absent an accident where somebody was seriously injured, how would she know if a non-employee was driving the vehicle, Fox responded, "We wouldn't know." N.T., 1/22/2019 p.m., at 57. Fox further stated, "Well let's just say Philadelphia is a small city. I'm sure sooner or later we would find out, someone would see. But we have no formal method for doing it." Id.

Saldana maintained that she provided Tina with "a diagram to help explain the difference between personal and business uses," and told Tina "several times, as part of repeated seminars for the organization, that the employee was the only person permitted to drive the company car." Trial Court Opinion, 6/24/2019, at 5.

Minter averred that Tina "had attended the regular, mandatory staff meetings and retreats where significant time was spent reviewing Department of Labor and Internal Revenue Service guidelines, which allegedly included discussion of PJB's company car policies." Id. , at 5. He also confirmed, "the vehicle use policy was reviewed, at minimum, once per year, occasionally several times per year." Id.

Contrary to these statements by PJB's leadership, Tina alleged that PJB did not inform her of these policies, and that she "assumed" she could use the vehicle for both business and personal uses. N.T., 1/23/2019 a.m., at 21-22. Tina added that she "would not have used [the vehicle] for personal reasons if she had been informed it was against company policy." Trial Court Opinion, 6/24/2019, at 6. "There was no written documentation signed by [Tina] to show that she had ever received the policy verbally or in writing, although Lynne Fox testified it was the union's protocol to get signed receipts from the employees at the yearly meetings where they reviewed the vehicle policy with employees." Id. Moreover, Fox could not provide any documentation that Tina was at these meetings where the policy was provided. See N.T., 1/22/2019 p.m., at 47. Finally, Tina's testimony conforms to her behavior: the PJB company car was the only vehicle in the Johnsons' possession. See N.T., 1/23/2019 a.m., at 114-115. They had a Honda Accord, but it was no longer in their possession after they received the PJB vehicle. See id.

Furthermore, Tina noted she was not told or given anything from PJB that family members were not permitted to use the vehicles. See N.T., 1/23/2019 a.m., at 36-37. Tina stated that "the only vehicle use policy she knew of was an understanding that she would not be reimbursed for personal use mileage, and that no one but her was allowed to drive the car." Trial Court Opinion, 6/24/2019, at 6.⁷ Tina also indicated PJB did not physically monitor her vehicle usage, but rather, PJB supervised the vehicle usage through time sheets and mileage logs. See N.T., 1/23/2019 a.m., at 17, 21-22.

Also relevant to our review was the evidence that Tina did not volunteer certain information to PJB. First, she did not inform PJB that her driver's license had been previously suspended due to failure to pay parking tickets and second, that her husband's license had been suspended since 1989. See id. , at 15-17. Additionally, while employed at PJB, Tina received a citation for failure to stop at a stop sign. See id. , at 42. She did not tell PJB about it, but a copy of the ticket was sent to the union. See id. , at 41-42...