PENNSYLVANIA LEGAL UPDATE
SPRING 2000 ISSUE

Most Pennsylvania employment relationships in the private sector are considered legally to be "at-will" relationships. This means that at the will of either the employee or the employer (with no justification necessary) the relationship can be ended. The law simply presumes that both parties to an employment relationship can end it for "any or no reason." When can fired employees sue to recover damages for a job firing that they consider to be unfair?

Many limitations serve to narrow the broad legal theory that all employment relationships can be terminated at will. Both federal and state antidiscrimination laws protect an employee from being fired because of a discriminatory reason. An employer who fires an employee because of the employee's race, ethnic background, religion, age, sex, or disability can be ordered to pay the employee back pay and damages. In some cases, employees who have suffered discriminatory firing can also win reinstatement to their former job positions.

In Pennsylvania, employers also can be found liable for a "wrongful discharge" if the firing violates public policy. Under the public policy exception to the doctrine that employment is at will, the courts have held that an employer cannot require an employee to commit a crime, cannot prevent an employee from obeying the law, and cannot fire an employee if a law forbids the firing. Pennsylvania courts have found public policy violations where an employer fired an employee for serving on jury duty, where an employer fired an employee for refusing to take a polygraph test when administration of the test was forbidden by statute, where an employer fired an employee for refusing to serve alcohol to an intoxicated customer, and where an employer fired an employee for following legal mandates relating to reporting the use of nuclear materials.

However, the courts have rejected employees' claims where a sales employee was fired after he objected to the marketing of a product that he considered dangerous, and where a health service nurse-administrator was fired for reporting her employer for past Medicare fraud that she unearthed in "old, discarded files." In these cases, the courts found that the employees were not fired for obeying any laws, nor were they pressured to break any laws. When an employee sues for wrongful discharge, claiming a violation of public policy, the employee must prove that the firing disturbed a clear public policy articulated in the Constitution, in legislation, in agency regulations, or in judicial decisions. It is not enough to prove simply that the employer acted unfairly.

Recently, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court extended the public policy doctrine. The court found that where a lumberyard fired one of its laborers after he filed a workers' compensation claim, the firing was illegal. Although the Workers' Compensation Act takes away from an employee all rights to sue the employer for injuries that the employee suffers in the course and scope of his or her employment, an employee's loss of the right to sue is balanced by the Act's imposition of strict liability on the employer. Even if the employer was not negligent, and even if the employee was negligent, the employee is entitled to compensation. With almost no exceptions, an employee is entitled to compensation for injuries suffered at work, including payment of the employee's medical expenses and payment of a portion of the employee's wages for the period of disability. In finding that the laborer could sue the lumberyard for wrongful discharge, the court held that "the historical balance" created by the Workers' Compensation Act would be disrupted if an employer could terminate an employee for filing a workers' compensation claim.

After a county airport authority expanded its runways, a nearby Pennsylvania couple found that the noise from aircraft flying over their house prevented them from carrying on telephone or face-to-face conversations both inside and outside their home. The noise also interfered with their ability to watch television, listen to the radio, and sleep. Vibrations shook their house, and the lights from the aircraft shone through their bedroom windows, further disturbing their sleep. The couple claimed that black debris from airplane fuel often coated their back porch and car windows.

The couple sued successfully, arguing that the airport activity was a "de facto taking" of their property. Pennsylvania law provides that landowners own the air space above their land, but only so far as is necessary to the enjoyment of the use of the surface without interference. All private rights to air space over land are subject to the right of passage or flight of aircraft. But where property owners claim injury from a public body's conduct, a de facto taking has occurred if the property owners can prove that they have lost the beneficial use and enjoyment of their property. If noise and disturbances interfere with the owners' beneficial use and enjoyment of their land and air space, the property owners are entitled to compensation. In cases involving injury to your property through a public interference, you must bring suit within five years. In cases where you claim an outright "taking" has occurred, as was the issue in this case, you have 21 years to commence your suit.

When is an owner liable to someone injured by the accumulation of ice and snow on a road or sidewalk? Does it make a difference if the sidewalk or road is owned by an individual, a town, or a state? These questions are complicated by the fact that different standards direct the liability of state government, local government, and private landowners.

Private landowners owe different levels of care to different classes of people. Landowners owe the least duty of care to trespassers-landowners need only refrain from willfully or wantonly engaging in misconduct that could injure a trespasser. As to social guests, landowners owe a slightly higher duty. They must correct problems or defects of which they are aware and must warn social guests of known dangers.

The highest duty owed by private landowners is owed to business visitors. A landowner must affirmatively protect business visitors by working to seek out, find, and resolve defects. A landowner is responsible to business visitors for injuries caused even by defects or conditions unknown to the landowner if the exercise of reasonable care would have brought the defect or condition to the landowner's attention. Thus, where a social guest is injured, the guest must prove that the owner knew of the problem that caused the injury. But an injured business visitor need only prove that the owner should have known of the problem.

When a Pennsylvania motel guest slipped on a large, thin patch of ice in the motel parking lot, fracturing her shoulder, she sued the motel owner, who admitted that he only salted and sanded part of the parking lot. Emphasizing her privileged status as a business visitor, the injured woman argued that the motel owner should have known that the entire parking lot was icy. However, the motel owner successfully defended the suit, raising the long-standing doctrine of "hills and ridges."

The "hills and ridges" doctrine holds that an owner of land is not liable for slippery conditions resulting from fallen ice and snow unless he or she permitted the ice and snow to unreasonably accumulate in uneven elevations-small ridges and hills of frozen snow or ice. In order to prove a landowner's liability, a plaintiff first must prove that the snow and ice accumulated on the sidewalk or roadway in ridges or elevations of such size and character as to unreasonably obstruct travel and create a danger. Where newly fallen, relatively undisturbed, smooth ice or snow causes someone injury, the landowner is not liable, even if the person is a business visitor. The hills and ridges doctrine recognizes and responds to the fact that any legal requirement that a landowner's property be free of ice and snow would impose an impossible burden on a landowner.

While the hills and ridges doctrine provides protection from liability to both private and government landowners, a separate body of law generally defines the responsibility of government agencies that own land or maintain roads and walkways. Linked to the ancient principle that "one cannot sue the king," state and local government agencies enjoy a complex, detailed array of immunities from lawsuits. But governmental immunity is not absolute.

Recently, a FedEx delivery man who suffered serious injuries on a Philadelphia airport roadway sued the City of Philadelphia, claiming that the city failed to properly remove accumulated snow and ice from a previous storm. The City of Philadelphia is a local governmental body, as are townships and boroughs. The delivery man won the suit on appeal. The court noted that the maintenance and operation of real estate-in this case, the roadway-is an exception to local governmental immunity from suit. But had the plaintiff fallen on a sidewalk, the result would probably have been different, because a separate exception to local governmental immunity applies to sidewalks. In the "sidewalk exception," only a defect in the sidewalk itself can give rise to liability. The accumulation of any substance on a sidewalk, whether it be ice, grease, or debris, cannot create local government liability.

To complicate matters even further, similar but slightly different rules define the liability of state governments. To defeat a state agency's immunity, a plaintiff must show that a dangerous condition of the state-controlled roadway, real estate, or sidewalk caused his or her injury. For example, a Pennsylvania driver was injured after she swerved to avoid debris on a state highway. She sued PennDOT. Her suit was dismissed because she was not hurt by a dangerous defect, design, or condition of the road itself. Instead, she was injured by a temporary accumulation of debris. The same principle protects PennDOT from suits based on the simple accumulation of snow and ice on state roads.

Liability for slippery, icy conditions is first closely tied to the very particular and specific nature of the iciness. A meticulous examination of the facts is a hallmark of these liability suits. In addition, the elaborate set of rules distinguishing private owners and local and state agencies can lead to very different results, depending on who controls the lot, sidewalk, or roadway in question.

A father's receipt of inheritance money should be included in the calculation of his income for the purpose of setting his child support obligation, according to a recent decision of the Pennsylvania Superior Court.

The father inherited over $83,000 upon his mother's death. He purchased a new home and other items for his current family's benefit. He was also the parent of a 16-year-old daughter who resided with an adult relative. When the relative learned of the inheritance, she requested an increase in the father's child support obligation. The local court agreed and increased the child support order substantially.

In Pennsylvania, child support awards are based on the state Child Support Guidelines, which calculate child support obligations based on the incomes of the parties. In setting a child support order, a judge may also rely on the parties' unusual needs, extraordinary expenses, and asset ownership. Generally, the parties' needs, expenses, and assets are not sufficiently unique to justify any departure from the Guidelines. The law defines "income" for support purposes as including all ordinary income as well as "other entitlements to money or lump sum awards, without regard to source, including lottery winnings, income tax refunds, insurance compensation or settlements, awards and verdicts and any form of payment due to and collectible by an individual regardless of source." Also included is "income from an estate or trust." Pennsylvania courts have long based support obligations not just on a parent's actual earnings but also on his or her earning ability and financial resources.

The father in this case argued that his inheritance was not "income" from an estate or trust but instead was his actual share of the estate. Because his purchases of a house and consumer goods did not generate any recurring income, such as an estate investment or annuity would, he claimed that he did not have any income from the estate. The court agreed with this analysis, concluding that the meaning of the statutory language-"income from an estate or trust"-implied a monthly or regular payment.

But the court found that the inheritance should be included in the father's income as an "other entitlement to money or lump sum award, without regard to source." Noting that courts sometimes require that parents make sacrifices because of their "inescapable duty" to provide for the reasonable needs of their children, the court found that, despite his already having invested the money in a new house for his family, the father also was responsible for paying increased support to his other child.

A party to a lawsuit can easily lose a claim or an appeal by missing a filing deadline. Recently, an employer who filed his own appeal in an unemployment compensation case was advised by the hearing referee that the appeal was not timely filed. The employer produced a United Parcel Service (UPS) tracking slip that indicated that the appeal papers were picked up by UPS on the final day for the employer's appeal. The rule required that an appeal be "postmarked" on or before the appeal deadline. The appellate court upheld the dismissal of the appeal, noting that Pennsylvania courts have consistently held that the term "postmark" means a United States Postal Service postmark.

The United States Post Office can provide customers with various means to prove the date of mailing, including certified or registered mail receipts, a document known as a "proof of mailing" (available for ordinary, first-class mailings), or a simple postmark on the item mailed. If you file a legal document on your own, be sure to secure from the post office the precise means of proof of mailing required by the relevant law. Also, do not use your private postage meter. The courts have held that the marks made by a private postage meter are not postmarks because the meter can be easily manipulated by the user to show any date.