Trial Court Rules that Sovereign Immunity Law Should Not Apply Retroactively to Grant Immunity to Defendant in Bus Accident Case

In the case of Kim v. New Jersey Transit Corp., June Term, 2024, No. 00380 (C.P. Phila. Co. Aug. 11, 2025 Turner, J.), the trial court issued a Rule 1925 Opinion requesting that the Superior Court affirm the trial court’s Order denying the Motion for Judgment on the Pleadings filed the Defendant, New Jersey Transit Corporation.

According to the Opinion, the case involved a Plaintiff who was injured while she was a passenger on a train owned and operated by the Defendant. The Plaintiff alleges that, as she was exiting the train at Philadelphia’s 30th Street Station, a train door allegedly closed on her, causing her to fall and sustain injuries.

The court denied the Defendant’s Preliminary Objections asserting sovereign immunity. The Defendants followed up that ruling by filing a Motion for Judgment on the Pleading raising the same issues.

The Defendants argued that they were entitled to sovereign immunity under the Superior Court’s decision in Galette v. NJ Transit, 293 A.3d 649, 658 (Pa. Super. 2023).  Under that decision, the Pennsylvania Superior Court had previously ruled that New Jersey Transit Corporation is immune from suit in Pennsylvania under the application of the Eleventh Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.  

The defense also noted that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court had weighed in on the same case and ruled in the same fashion under its decision in Galette v. NJ Transit, 332 A.3d 776 (Pa. 2025). 

The trial court in this case noted that the United States Supreme Court had granted certiorari on July 3, 2025 to review the issues raised in Galette v. NJ Transit. 

In its trial court Opinion in this Kim v. NJ Transit case, the trial court continued to hold that the Defendant was not entitled to sovereign immunity and that the trial court had therefore properly denied Defendants’ Motion for Judgment on the Pleadings. In so ruling, the trial court in this case held that the Galette v. NJ Transit ruling by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court should not apply retroactively to preclude the Plaintiff’s suit on the basis of Eleventh Amendment sovereign immunity.

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Source: The Legal Intelligencer Common Pleas Case Alert, www.Law.com (Nov. 6, 2025).