Scott v. Canela-Perez, 2025 Pa. Commw. LEXIS 150 (August 14, 2025) Fizzano Cannon, Judge.
Judges: BEFORE: HONORABLE RENÉE COHN JUBELIRER, President Judge. HONORABLE PATRICIA A. McCULLOUGH, Judge, HONORABLE ANNE E. COVEY, Judge, HONORABLE MICHAEL H. WOJCIK, Judge, HONORABLE CHRISTINE FIZZANO CANNON, Judge, HONORABLE LORI A. DUMAS, Judge, HONORABLE STACY WALLACE, Judge.
OPINION BY JUDGE FIZZANO CANNON.
City of Philadelphia (City) police officers Brian Canela-Perez and George Lutz (Police Officers) appeal from a judgment entered after a jury trial in the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County (Trial Court). Upon review, we vacate the Trial Court’s judgment and remand for a new trial.
On appeal, Police Officers assert that the Trial Court erred in failing to instruct the jury that it must find willful misconduct on the part of Police Officers in order to impose liability against them. Relatedly, Police Officers allege error by the Trial Court in failing to include an interrogatory concerning willful misconduct on the verdict slip.
Police Officers requested the following jury instruction concerning the statute commonly referred to as the Political Subdivision Tort Claims Act (Tort Claims Act): The Commonwealth has enacted a statute called the . . . Tort Claims Act. This statute provides immunity to employees of a municipality, such as police officers, unless the police officers’ conduct constituted “willful misconduct.”
This means that even if you find that Mr. Scott has proven claims for malicious prosecution or intentional infliction of emotional distress, Officers Canela-Perez and Lutz cannot be liable unless you also find that Officers Canela-Perez and Lutz’s conduct constituted “willful misconduct.”
Willful misconduct entails actual prior knowledge of a plaintiff’s peril and must be carried out with the intention of achieving exactly that wrongful purpose. Willful misconduct means that an officer’s tortious behavior may be characterized as willful misconduct only when an officer subjectively intends to do something he knows is wrongful.
In the context of Mr. Scott’s claims for and malicious prosecution, willful misconduct only exists if Officers Canela-Perez and Lutz deliberately detained, arrested, or prosecuted Mr. Scott “knowing that [they] lacked probable cause to do so.” In other words, Mr. Scott must show “not only that [Officers Canela-Perez and Lutz] intended to commit the acts that they are accused of carrying out, but also that [Officers Canela-Perez and Lutz] understood that the actions they intended to take were unlawful and chose to take the actions anyway.” Gross negligence or recklessness is not sufficient to prove willful misconduct.
In Renk v. City of Pittsburgh, 537 Pa. 68, 641 A.2d 289 (Pa. 1994), a jury in a federal action found Renk, a city police officer, liable to an arrestee for the torts of assault, battery, false imprisonment, and infliction of emotional distress. See id. at 291. Renk then brought a separate state court action against the city seeking indemnification. Id. The city argued to the trial court that Renk was estopped from requesting indemnification, but the trial court rejected that argument, concluding there was no indication that the jury in the federal action had considered or decided the issue of willful misconduct so as to bar a separate indemnity claim. Id. This Court reversed, holding that intentional torts necessarily constituted willful misconduct. Id. at 291- 92.
Here, unlike in Renk and Cruz, the specific issue is immunity, not merely indemnity, of police officers regarding liability for intentional torts. Consistent with our precedential conclusion in York, supported by our earlier decisions in Pettit and Williams, we agree with Police Officers that our Supreme Court’s analysis in Renk and our reasoning in Cruz do not support the Trial Court’s refusal of Police Officers’ proffered jury instruction and related verdict slip interrogatory concerning willful misconduct in this case.7 The Renk Court explained that a jury’s finding that a police officer committed intentional torts, including assault, battery, and intentional infliction of emotional distress, does not equate to a finding of willful misconduct. See Renk, 691 A.2d at 293-94. This Court recently reached a similar conclusion in York, as discussed above. See 298 A.3d at 544 (quoting Cruz and explaining that a jury may find a police officer committed an intentional tort despite the officer’s subjective belief that his conduct was legally permissible). We conclude, therefore, that the Trial Court committed a fundamental error by declining to instruct the jury and include a jury interrogatory concerning possible willful misconduct by Police Officers.
Because the Trial Court’s error was fundamental and caused prejudice to Police Officers, we vacate the Trial Court’s judgment and remand for a new trial at which both the jury instructions and verdict slip will require the jury to address the question of willful misconduct.
• This case was brought into the Political Subdivision Tort Claims Act.
• The jury was charged that the police officers would be responsible for “Willful Misconduct.”
• Willful Misconduct entails actual prior knowledge of a plaintiff’s peril and must be carried out with the intention of achieving that wrongful purpose.
• Willful Misconduct means that an officer’s tortious behavior may be characterized as willful misconduct only when an officer subjectively intends to do something he knows is wrong.
• Scott’s claim was for malicious prosecution.
• In that context, willful misconduct only exists if the Officers deliberately detained, arrested, or prosecuted Mr. Scott knowing that they lacked probable cause.
• Here the specific issue is immunity, not merely indemnity, of police officers regarding liability for intentional torts.
• The case law does not support the trial court’s refusal of the Police Officer’s proffered jury instruction and related verdict slip interrogatory concerning willful misconduct in this case.
• Trial court’s error was fundamental and cause prejudice to the Police Officers.
• The trial court’s judgment is vacated, and the case is remanded for a new trial at which both the jury instructions and verdict slip will require the jury to address the question of willful misconduct.
