Appellate court affirmed trial court’s determination that erroneous admission of evidence that defendant was terminated as a result of accident constituted “harmless error” and was not grounds for vacating judgment in favor of plaintiff.

The plaintiff, a nursing assistant, was sitting in the front seat of an ambulance that rear-ended a vehicle at a red light in poor weather conditions. The defendant maintained he was driving the speed limit, while the plaintiff claimed he was travelling between 50 and 60 miles per hour. The defendant driver was ultimately terminated by Keystone, his employer, due to the accident. 

During the trial, evidence that Keystone terminated the defendant was admitted. The Superior Court ultimately vacated the judgment in favor of the plaintiff. However, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court reversed and remanded this ruling, based on Grove v. Authority of Allegheny County, 218 A.3d 877 (Pa. 2019), that the trial and lower appellate court must first determine if the admission of this evidence surpassed Grove’s “harmless error” standard. 

Keystone argued that admission of this evidence created inherent prejudice; however, the court did not find this persuasive, noting that there was no issue of comparative fault or finding of negligence against the plaintiff, as there was with regard to the pedestrian plaintiff in Grove. Therefore, since the plaintiff was not negligent in any regard, the court considered the erroneous admission of the evidence of the driver’s termination to be “harmless error.”
 

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