SEPTA entitled to claim of sovereign immunity in a stopped bus accident.

The plaintiffs may not recover damages from SEPTA in a case where a man alleged he was injured while on a stopped bus when it was rear-ended by an uninsured motorist, a three-judge Commonwealth Court panel has ruled. The unanimous judicial panel rejected the plaintiff's contention that the stopped vehicle was not in "operation" and that, therefore, the transportation agency could not invoke sovereign immunity. The court decided that, because the bus was not moving while at a West Philadelphia stop, the plaintiff was precluded from recovering from SEPTA under the vehicle liability exception to sovereign immunity. Judge Kelley cited the 1988 Supreme Court Opinion in Love v. City of Philadelphia, a case dealing with an exception to governmental immunity, where "operation" was defined as meaning "'to actually put into motion,'" to explain his reasoning. Pennsylvania courts have consistently held that exceptions to immunity for government entities should be "narrowly interpreted and strictly" construed in order to insulate state parties from liability. The relevant exception to sovereign immunity was the vehicle liability exception, which defines "motor vehicle" as "any vehicle which is self-propelled and any attachment thereto, including vehicles operated by rail, through water or in the air."

Case Law Alert - 1st Qtr 2012