J-A19038-15

NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT I.O.P. 65.37 JEAN COULTER, : IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF : PENNSYLVANIA Appellant : : v. : : STANTON LEVENSON, SALLY FRICK, THOMAS FORREST, DENNIS HOERNER, CHRISTINE STUDENY AND WILLIAM R. SHAFFER, : : : : : Appellants : No. 1279 WDA 2014 Appeal from the Order entered on July 28, 2014 in the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County,

Civil Division, No. GD-14-1506 BEFORE: BENDER, P.J.E., JENKINS and MUSMANNO, JJ. MEMORANDUM BY MUSMANNO, J.: FILED JUNE 22, 2015 Following the initiation of this appeal by Jean Cou lter (“Coulter”), pro

se , Christine Studeny (“Studeny”) filed a Motion to Q uash, asserting that the Order at issue in this appeal is interlocutory and unappealable. We grant the Motion to Quash and quash the appeal. Briefly, following myriad pro se suits and appeals initiated by Coulter in the past few years, 1 on January 31, 2014, Coulter filed a pro se Complaint against Studeny and the above-captioned co-defendan ts, alleging, inter alia , breach of contract, and the deprivation of Coulter’ s due process and other

1 In an Opinion concerning one of Coulter’s numerous prior appeals, this Court summarized some of the protracted procedural history, and discussed Coulter’s litigiousness. See Coulter v. Ramsden , 94 A.3d 1080, 1082-83 (Pa. Super. 2014).J-A19038-15

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constitutional rights. 2 Two months later, Studeny filed a Motion to dismi ss the Complaint pursuant to Pa.R.C.P. 233.1 (providin g a means for dismissal of frivolous, pro se actions). The trial court granted Studeny’s Motio n to

dismiss. Notably to this appeal, Studeny attached as an exhi bit to her Motion to dismiss a copy of an Opinion (hereinafter “the chal lenged Opinion”) authored by the Butler County judge who presided over the te rmination proceedings involving Coulter. In response to the inclusion of the challenged Opinion, on July 28, 2014, Coulter filed a pro se “Emergency Petition for Special Relief.” Coulter sought an order by the trial court to seal the challenged Opinion because it contained information that her parental rights had been terminated. According to Coulter, the challenged O pinion was a “confidential adoption record,” pursuant to the provisions of the Pennsylvania Adoption Act, 23 Pa.C.S.A. § 2101 et seq . Coulter particularly relied upon 23 Pa.C.S.A. § 2910 (setting forth the criminal penalt y for unauthorized disclosure of confidential adoption information), a nd 23 Pa.C.S.A. § 2915 (governing confidentiality of adoption records). The trial court denied Coulter’s Emergency Petition by an Order entered on July 28, 2014 (hereinafter “the appealed Order”), the subject of Coulter’s present appeal.

2 Coulter’s claims against the defendants arise out of the termination of her parental rights to her daughter in 2011, by the But ler County Court of Common Pleas. Studeny is an Assistant District Att orney in Butler County. The remaining defendants include Butler County law enforcement and judicial officers, and two of Coulter’s prior attor neys.J-A19038-15

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It is undisputed that the appealed Order is not a f inal order. However, Coulter contends that it is appealable as a collate ral order, pursuant to Pa.R.A.P. 313(a) and (b) (providing, respectively, that “[a]n appeal may be taken as of right from a collateral order[,]” and “ [a] collateral order is an order separable from and collateral to the main cau se of action[,] where the right involved is too important to be denied review [,] and the question presented is such that if review is postponed until final judgment in the case, the claim will be irreparably lost.”); see also Melvin v. Doe , 836 A.2d 42, 47 (Pa. 2003) (stating that all of the above three prongs of Rule 313(b) “must be clearly present before an order may be con sidered collateral[,]” and “Rule 313 must be interpreted narrowly”). Coul ter relies upon, inter

alia , this Court’s decision in Berkeyheiser v. A-Plus Investigations, Inc. , 936 A.2d 1117, 1123-24 (Pa. Super. 2007) (holding t hat orders involving potentially confidential and privileged materials w ere appealable collateral orders that could be reviewed without an analysis o f the underlying negligence claim). After review, we conclude that the appealed Order d oes not meet all of the prongs of Rule 313(b), 3 and is therefore not an appealable collateral order. In particular, Coulter has not established that the right involved is too important to be denied review. Indeed, she has no right to have the

3 In Coulter’s pro se Response to Studeny’s Motion to Quash, she does no t discuss any of the collateral order prongs or cite to Rule 313.J-A19038-15

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challenged Opinion sealed, nor does it contain conf idential or privileged

information. The challenged Opinion concerns the statutory provi sions governing involuntary termination of parental rights, see 23 Pa.C.S.A. §§ 2511 to 2513 (hereinafter “Chapter 25”). The confidentiality and penalty provisions of the Adoption Act (sections 2910 and 2915) upon which Co ulter relies are not applicable to involuntary termination records; rath er, they apply only to adoption records and confidential adoption informat ion. See 23 Pa.C.S.A. § 2910 (providing a criminal penalty for willful di sclosure of “confidential

information relating to an adoption ”) (emphasis added); id. § 2915 (a) and (b) (concerning the confidentiality of adoption records). We have reviewed Coulter’s argument to the contrary, see Reply Brief for Appellant at 2-6, and determine that it lacks merit. Additionally, Chapt er 25 does not contain any similar provisions relating to the confidentiality of involuntary termination records. Finally, as Studeny correctly points out in her brief, [t]he only relief which [Coulter seeks in her Emerg ency Petition] is the sealing of one exhibit in one of multiple ma tters she has pending in various federal and state courts. The [ challenged Opinion] has been filed of record multiple times in various courts. Thus, even if this Court would [] reverse the trial court, the practical implications of such a reversal are [ ] narrow and would not operate to accomplish [Coulter’s] objecti ve of preventing disclosure that her parental rights with respect to [her daughter] were terminated. Brief for Appellee at 9-10.J-A19038-15

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Because Coulter failed to establish all of the pro ngs of the collateral order doctrine, this appeal is interlocutory, and w e lack jurisdiction to address it. Therefore, we grant Studeny’s Motion t o Quash the appeal. Motion to Quash granted. Appeal quashed. Judgment Entered.

Joseph D. Seletyn, Esq. Prothonotary Date: 6/22/2015