Providing additional guidance on what constitutes a "judicial admission" that may not be contradicted by a plaintiff on the witness stand, the Pennsylvania Superior Court upheld an Allegheny County jury's approximately $2.2 million award to a man injured when a tractor rolled over him.

In Huchko v. Blount International, plaintiff Michael Huchko sued Baker & Sons Equipment for allegedly faulty maintenance of the Blount Hydro-Ax tractor's brake system. The jury found Baker & Sons 75% negligent and Huchko 25% negligent.

On appeal, Baker & Sons argued that the trial court had erred by denying its motion in limine to preclude Huchko from testifying at trial in contradiction to paragraph 17 of his complaint. The defendant contended that paragraph 17 unambiguously stated that Huchko was run over while trying to stop a moving tractor, but that at trial he testified the tractor had been stationary when he tried to climb into it but then began to roll down a slope and ran him over.

Baker & Sons said paragraph 17 constituted a judicial admission that was binding on Huchko's trial testimony, but the appeals panel, led by Senior Judge Dan Pellegrini, disagreed, noting that, under the Superior Court's 2017 ruling in Branton v. Nicholas Meat, a key element of a judicial admission "'is that the fact has been admitted for the advantage of the admitting party.'"

"In this case, as the trial court found, the interpretation of paragraph 17 advanced by Baker—that Huchko tried to get into the Hydro-Ax while it was moving—is not advantageous at all to Huchko," said Pellegrini, joined by Judges John Bender and Mary Jane Bowes in a March 13 memorandum. "Because it is not advantageous to him, the trial court properly found that it was not a judicial admission that precluded him from testifying at trial concerning how he sustained his injuries."

Pellegrini added that paragraph 17  was not "'a clear and unequivocal admission of fact,'" as required under the Superior Court's 2018 ruling in Koziar v. Rayner.

"The paragraph is merely a one-sentence condensed description of the accident that mentioned Hydro-Ax, while in his deposition, Huchko gave an in-depth detailed account of the accident spanning several pages of testimony that included his impression that the Hydro-Ax was moving," Pellegrini said. "Because an admission cannot be just one interpretation of the statement, paragraph 17 for this additional reason did not constitute a judicial admission to preclude his testimony at trial."

Daniel Hessel and Jim Golkow of Golkow Hessel represented Huchko.

"After five years of litigation, our client is relieved that the defendant was ultimately made to pay the full debt it owed him," Hessel said in an email.

Baker & Sons is represented by Joseph Hudock of Summers, McDonnell, Hudock, Guthrie & Rauch in Pittsburgh. Hudock could not be reached for comment.