214 Pa. Super. 423 | Pa. Super. Ct. | 1969
Opinion by
Plaintiff was injured on April 28, 1962 when gored by a bull on defendants’ property located in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania. Plaintiff filed a claim with the Workmen’s Compensation Board to recover for his personal injuries. Defendants filed their answer denying the plaintiff was an employee at the time of the accident. Plaintiff thereupon withdrew his claim without determination being made by the Board of either the existing relationship between plaintiff and defendants or of the plaintiff’s application for benefits. Plaintiff then filed a complaint in trespass against defendants and defendants filed an answer to this complaint, at which time they did not raise the defense of employer-employee relationship. At trial defendants moved to amend their answer in order to plead the existence of an employer-employee relationship between the parties. Plaintiff pleaded surprise because the issue had not been raised in the pleadings, but the court granted the motion to amend and also granted plaintiff’s motion for withdrawal of a juror and continuance of the case. Prior to the second trial, defendants filed New Matter alleging an employer-employee relationship; plaintiff replied; defendants moved for summary judgment and the lower court denied summary judgment holding that defendants were es-topped from asserting the defense of employer-employee
The dispositive question is whether the learned lower court was correct in excluding evidence at the trial pertaining to employer-employee relationship on the ground that defendants were estopped from so doing by their answer filed in the workmen’s compensation proceedings denying the relationship. The thrust of the learned lower court’s approach to this case is predicated primarily on its belief that the principle of estoppel applies here. However, unless all the elements of estoppel are proved to be present in the transaction between the parties, the principle of estoppel is not pertinent to this litigation. In the opinion of this court all the essential ingredients of estoppel are not present. The lower court’s finding that plaintiff’s withdrawal from the workmen’s compensation proceedings stemmed from reliance on defendants’ answer in those proceedings is not based on fact or evidence. It is true that estoppel applies if we assume the truth of plaintiff’s hypothesis that plaintiff relied on defendants’ answer when he withdrew his claim. But, as that hypothesis is an assumed and not a proved fact, the doctrine of estoppel based thereon cannot govern. Both parties were equally familiar with the underlying facts of their relationships and it
As was stated in Culbertson v. Cook, 308 Pa. 557, 565 (1932) : “. . . ‘. . . the doctrine assumes a lack of knowledge by the party claiming the estoppel. In Hill v. Epley (citation omitted), we said, “If, therefore, the truth be known to both parties or if they have equal means of knowledge, there can be no estoppel.” . . . Here, the only matter Avhich perhaps Avas unknown to appellant is a matter of law ... we must assume the law to have been known to all, and a mistake of that kind Avill not help either side.’ . . .”
Plaintiff depends on several cases decided by the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania and by this court: Buehler v. Philadelphia & Reading Ry. Company, 280 Pa. 92 (1924) ; Kuhn v. Pennsylvania Railroad Company, 270 Pa. 474 (1921); Welser v. Ealer, 317 Pa. 182 (1935); Williams v. Baptist Church, 123 Pa. Superior Ct. 136 (1936). These cases are distinguishable from the instant case. In Buehler, the Supreme Court asserted that defendant ‘sprocured the dismissal of plaintiff’s claim in a former proceeding” by an adjudi
One who stands upon estoppel must establish the essentials thereof by clear, precise and unequivocal evidence. Frazee v. Morris, 155 Pa. Superior Ct. 320, 38 A. 2d 526 (1944); Peoples National Bank of Ellwood City v. Bartel, 128 Pa. Superior Ct. 128, 193 A. 59 (1937). In this case, there are no facts which clearly lead down an untrammeled road to the conclusion of estoppel. All that is. present here is an unadjudicated inconsistent position taken by defendants in a prior proceeding voluntarily withdrawn by plaintiff. Defendants cannot thus be estopped from asserting a position contrary to the one they never had an opportunity to prove or have adjudicated. At most, the defendants’ pleadings in the prior action were admissible as admissions and which they had the right to contradict by other evidence. In this context, pleadings are conclusive in their nature only in the cause of action in which they are filed. When the contents thereof are sought to be used in other proceedings, they can only be regarded as admissions by the parties of the facts contained therein: Barclay v. Barclay, 230 Pa. 467, 471 79 A. 667 (1911). A prior inconsistent statement in another action does not estop the party from taking a different position in a subsequent independent suit. Lindsay v. Dutton, 227 Pa. 208, 212, 75 A. 1096, 1097 (1910); Com. v. Monongahela Bridge Co., 216 Pa. 108, 116, 64 A. 909, 912 (1906); Floyd v. Kulp Lumber Co., 222 Pa. 257, 270, 71 A. 13, 16 (1908); Wigmore on Evidence, Vol. IV, Sec. 1065; Lapayowker v. Lincoln College Preparatory School, 386 Pa. 167, 176 (1956). In Barclay, supra, the record of a proceeding in which a decree pro confesso was entered for want of appearance Avas permitted to be used in evidence against plaintiff as an admission against interest and plaintiff
The instant case does not involve a moral lesson for one side or another. It is predicated on the ancient maxim that every man is entitled to his day in court. Defendants had a right to cross-examine plaintiff in the matter of employer-employee relationship regardless of the legal conclusion set forth in their answer in the workmen’s compensation proceeding. They have been denied this right. Hence a new trial is ordered and the record remanded for that purpose.