March 2025 Docket Review
This month, the Court issued 8 precedential opinions and 2 allocatur grants. On the opinion side, the case with the most widespread effect may be Glover, in which the Court, led by Justice Dougherty, recognized an intent-based pathway to legal parentage in the context of a parentage dispute between same-sex partners who had conceived using a sperm donor and in vitro fertilization. Although there was at least arguable evidence that the parties had entered into a contract, already a pathway to legal parentage, the Court decided that the adoption of intent based parentage was appropriate, in part because of an ill-fit between the solemnity of the decision to become a parent and contract principles, particularly bargained-for consideration, concluding “[w]e prefer to recognize a more dignified means to establish parentage for couples who use [assistive reproductive technology] to conceive.” The opinion was a breath of fresh air in an area of the law that often lags behind the times. That said, it is not without its complications. By providing parents an extra pathway to legal parentage, the decision also provides parties opportunity to plead, and litigate, in the alternative. In this author’s view, and likely in the view of countless, particularly same-sex, couples who have used assistive reproductive technology to bring children into the world without the formalities of a corporate merger, the trade-off is worth it.
Also interesting this month is Foster, in which the Court applies federal constitutional jurisprudence that a police officer’s lies to a suspect (in this case, lies that he was not a suspect), do not ipso facto render his ensuing confession involuntary. Although that is a fairly unremarkable proposition of federal law, the Court, in an opinion by Justice Daniel McCaffery, noted that Foster had waived a claim that a parallel Pennsylvania constitutional provision might require a different result, and all but explicitly invited the next appellant to make out the claim. Justice David Wecht concurred, glossing on the point and finding some purchase with Foster’s counsel and their associated amici’s argument that lies, and particularly compelling lies, routinely lead to false confessions. He also noted that the other branches were free to act to restrict police lies that do so.
The point is worth examination, in this case, and particularly inasmuch as police lies in most cases are generally part of an overall tactic called the “Reid method,” whereby police are trained to ratchet up pressure by exaggerating or fabricating a strong case against a suspect, sometimes even fabricating essentially unimpeachable forensic evidence, emphasizing that the suspect’s defending himself would be pointless, and implying that making an inculpatory statement will lead to leniency by the officer, prosecutor, or court.
The tactic is of dubious origin: it derives from Soviet interrogators who were collecting “evidence” for show-trials of political dissidents. And although it is effective at obtaining inculpatory statements, the truth is that if the suspect is guilty, it may be a coincidence.
Federal jurisprudence proceeds from 20th-century lay and judicial notions of voluntariness as a guarantor of a statement’s constitutionally minimally acceptable reliability, and simply does not account for modern psychological understandings of manipulation and voluntariness, or for the fact that, in the post-DNA world, we now know that many individuals who make inculpatory statements are actually innocent. Perhaps the next case will allow the Court to bring Pennsylvania into the present-day on this point as well.
Precedential Opinions
Gustafson v. Springfield, Inc., 7 WAP 2023 (Opinion by Mundy, J.) (holding that action for wrongful death arising out of accidental discharge of a firearm was barred by federal legislation and that the legislation was a valid exercise of Congress’ Commerce-Clause authority and not violative of Tenth Amendment principles)
Schmidt v. Schmidt, Kirides and Rassias, PC (WCAB), 32 MAP 2024 (Opinion by Brobson, J.) (holding that doctor-prescribed CBD oil is a covered “medicine and supply” for purposes of the Workers’ Compensation Act)
Simone v. Alam, 35 MAP 2024 (Opinion by Mundy, J.) (holding that a tenant in common not in possession of real property is not an indispensable party to a premises-liability action against another tenant in common in possession of the property at the time of the injury)
Better Bets Ventures, LLC v. Pa. Gaming Control Bd., 27 MAP 2024 et al. (Opinion by Wecht, J.) (holding the Gaming Control Board lacked substantial evidence to deny a gaming license to certain individuals solely on the basis of their participation in the skill games industry)
Glover v. Junior, 9 EAP 2024 (Opinion by Dougherty, J.) (adopting intent-based parentage in the context of a same-sex couple’s use of assistive reproductive technology to conceive children)
See also Concurring Opinion by Brobson, J.
Commonwealth v. Foster, 34 WAP 2023 (Opinion by McCaffery, J.) (holding that an officer’s lie that a suspect was not a suspect did not vitiate his ensuing statement’s voluntariness under federal constitutional standards)
See also Concurring Opinion by Wecht, J.
Galette v. NJ Transit, 4 EAP 2024 (Opinion by Brobson, J.) (applying federal interstate sovereign immunity doctrine to action against New Jersey transportation agency)
Almusa v. State Bd. of Medicine, 25 MAP 2024 (Opinion by Donohue, J.) (applying new statutory framework to physician’s petition for reinstatement of his license)
Allocatur Grants
Commonwealth v. Roper, 374 EAL 2024 (granting review to consider whether a trial court’s barring of the defendant’s family violated his constitutional right to a public trial and constituted structural error)
Commonwealth v. Gaspard, 511 MAL 2024 (granting review to consider whether the offense of theft by deception in the context of a defendant’s failure to report a source of income while seeking public benefits requires evidence that with proper reporting of income the individual would have obtained a smaller amount of benefits)
