Representing the American Association for Justice (AAJ), CCL’s Kathryn S. Minton filed an amicus curiae brief in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, urging the Court to find the liability cap under the Political Subdivision Tort Claims Act unconstitutional.

In this case, Zauflik v. Pennsbury School District, seventeen-year-old Ashley Zauflik was run over by a school bus, owned and operated by Pennsbury School District, while standing outside her high school. Zauflik suffered pelvic and leg crush injuries that required an above-the-knee amputation of her left leg. After the school district admitted negligence, a Bucks County jury entered a verdict awarding $14 million in compensatory damages to Zauflik, which the court reduced to $500,000 under the cap, but urged that “a reevaluation of the constitutionality of the statutory cap on damages on equal protection grounds is necessary.” After the decision was affirmed by a divided Commonwealth Court, the state supreme court agreed to determine whether the cap violates provisions of the Pennsylvania Constitution.

AAJ’s amicus brief provides the Court a national and historical perspective on governmental immunity doctrine and defines its limited status under the Tort Claims Act damage cap as an ordinary law enacted by statute because the Court previously abrogated sovereign immunity as an antiquated common-law doctrine. Expressing concern that the cap contravenes Pennsylvania’s equal protection, open courts, jury trial, and anti-cap guarantees, the brief urges that the “Court should recognize that the statute has no extra-constitutional status and must conform to constitutional requirements[,]” and that, because it does not, Zauflik is entitled to full recovery of her jury verdict.