On May 19, 2025, Burns White Members Bill Mundy, Ira Podheiser, and Associate Philip Mintz, obtained a significant appellate victory before the Pennsylvania Superior Court for one of our nursing home clients. The Court unanimously threw out a seven-figure punitive damages award (that exceeded the amount of compensatory damages awarded by almost tenfold).
The Plaintiff’s decedent, a resident of our nursing home client, slipped and fell in the shower at the nursing home, causing her to sustain injuries. The Plaintiff’s estate sued for negligence, seeking compensatory damages, not mentioning or raising the possibility that our client acted “recklessly” in caring for the Decedent, which would have raised the potential for punitive damages.
During the trial, Plaintiff’s counsel improperly elicited admissions from two nursing home employees that our client had been “reckless” in its care for the Decedent. At that point, Plaintiff’s counsel moved to be permitted to amend the Complaint to allege recklessness, even though the statute of limitations had already expired, to allow Plaintiff to seek punitive damages. The trial court, over our objections, permitted the amendment. The jury awarded the Plaintiff compensatory damages and also found that our client acted recklessly. At that point, the trial court ordered that a second trial be convened which would determine the amount of punitive damages to be awarded. Several months later, after a second trial, a different jury awarded significant punitive damages based on our client’s allegedly reckless conduct.
We appealed the punitive damages award to the Superior Court. Our appellate team, led by Ira Podheiser, Bill Mundy and Philip Mintz, briefed and argued the issues in front of a three-judge panel of the Court. On May 19, the Court, in a published opinion, unanimously threw out the entire punitive damages award. The Court accepted our argument that to permit the Plaintiff to amend her Complaint halfway through trial to allege essentially a new cause of action was an abuse of discretion, resulting in severe unfair prejudice to our client which could not be remedied. As a result, the Court vacated the punitive damages award.