In insurance bad faith cases in Pennsylvania, insurers routinely incrementally challenge claims by insured parties, reasserting the same arguments at different procedural stages, such as in preliminary objections, motions for judgment on the pleadings, and motions for summary judgment. In many counties across Pennsylvania, including Philadelphia, different judges are assigned to decide motions at various stages of a case. The recent decision of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in Ivy Hill Congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses v. Department of Human Services, 310 A.3d 742 (Pa. 2024) regarding the coordinate jurisdiction rule may result in the dismissal of subsequent challenges raising issues which have previously been adjudicated in the course of the litigation. The coordinate jurisdiction rule precludes re-litigation of an issue that has been previously decided in the context of a lawsuit. This rule applies unless: there has been a change in the law; there has been a change in the facts; or the initial ruling was clearly erroneous such that following it would create a manifest injustice. It is the demonstration of exceptional circumstances, not the distinct procedural posture of the case, which renders the coordinate jurisdiction rule inapplicable. Thus, where an insurer raises issues which have been adjudicated by the court, these issues may not be revisited absent any of these exceptional circumstances. Insurers, nonetheless, often ignore this rule of law in raising the same issues again and again in the course of a bad faith lawsuit.

In Ivy Hill an issue was raised as to whether religious elders of the congregation who receive confessions related to child abuse fall within the “clergyman exception” to mandatory reporting under the Child Protective Services Law, 23 Pa.C.S.A. Section 6301 et seq. (CPSL). The congregation sought declaratory relief on this issue in its suit against the Department of Human Services (DHS). DHS filed preliminary objections, arguing that: Ivy Hill lacked standing; Ivy Hill failed to join indispensable parties; Ivy Hill failed to exhaust administrative remedies; and, the requested relief would not terminate the uncertainty of future enforcement actions. The Commonwealth Court overruled all four of DHS’s preliminary objections but, at the same time, denied the congregation’s application for summary relief.