J-A07013-15 

NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT I.O.P. 65.37 

STACEY HANEY, INDIVIDUALLY AND AS 

PARENT AND NATURAL GUARDIAN OF 

HARLEY HANEY, A MINOR AND PAIGE 

HANEY, A MINOR, AND BETH VOYLES 

AND JOHN VOYLES, HUSBAND AND 

WIFE, ASHLEY VOYLES, INDIVIDUALLY, 

LOREN KISKADDEN, INDIVIDUALLY, 

GRACE KISKADDEN, INDIVIDUALLY, 

IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF

PENNSYLVANIA 

v. 

RANGE RESOURCES-APPALACHIA, INC., 

NEW DOMINON CONSTRUCTION, INC., 

TERRAFIX ENVIRONMENT TECHNOLOGY, 

INC., SKAPS INDUSTRIES, INC., 

ENGINEERED SYNTHETIC PRODUCTS, 

INC., RED OAK WATER TRANSFER NE, 

LLC, MICROBAC LABORATORIES, INC., 

MULTI-CHEM GROUP, LLC, UNIVERSAL 

WELL SERVICES, INC., HALIBURTON 

ENERGY SERVICES, INC., SAXON 

DRILLING, L.P., HIGHLAND 

ENVIRONMENTAL, LLC, EAP 

INDUSTRIES, INC., AND TEST AMERICA 

INC. 

APPEAL OF: RANGE RESOURCESAPPALACHIA, INC. No. 1130 WDA 2014 

Appeal from the Order June 11, 2014 

In the Court of Common Pleas of Washington County 

Civil Division at No(s): 2012-3534 

BEFORE: BENDER, P.J.E., LAZARUS, J., and MUNDY, J. 

MEMORANDUM BY BENDER, P.J.E.: FILED APRIL 14, 2015 

Range Resources – Appalachia, LLC (Range Resources) appeals from 

the order of court entered June 11, 2014, granting Appellees’ motion to 
J-A07013-15 

- 2 - 

compel Range Resources’ compliance with its discovery obligations. We 

quash. 

Appellees are individuals residing in Amwell Township, Pennsylvania. 

In May 2012, Appellees commenced this action, claiming personal injuries 

and property damage from environmental contamination caused by Range 

Resources in the course of its natural gas operations at the so-called Yeager 

Drill Site. As this action proceeded to discovery, Appellees sought 

information regarding all chemicals and/or substances used or brought to 

the Yeager Drill Site. In response, Range Resources provided citations to 

Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS) for products used at the Yeager Drill 

Site. Range Resources acknowledged that the MSDS did not reveal the 

proprietary, chemical ingredients of such products, but it suggested that any 

hazardous proprietary ingredients would have been disclosed in the MSDS. 

In November 2013, the trial court issued an order directing all thirdparty manufacturers of products used at the Yeager Drilling Site to disclose 

the constituent ingredients of their products.1 Few third-party 

manufacturers complied. Thereafter, in February 2014, Appellees filed a 

motion to compel Range Resources’ compliance with the order. According to 

Appellees, Range Resources was responsible for the site and was best placed 

to secure the information sought. The trial court agreed. In June 2014, the 

____________________________________________ 

1

 The order does not direct any action by Range Resources. 
J-A07013-15 

- 3 - 

court issued an order expressly placing the burden on Range Resources to 

secure and provide the desired information, including all proprietary 

ingredients. 

Range Resources timely appealed and filed a court-ordered Pa.R.A.P. 

1925(b) statement. The trial court issued a responsive opinion. 

Range Resources raises the following issue on appeal: 

Whether the lower court violated Pennsylvania public policy and 

erred in placing a burden on [Range Resources] to secure and 

produce trade secret or proprietary information from the 

manufacturers and suppliers of products used or brought to one 

of [Range Resources’] drill sites, when it has not been 

established that such proprietary information is relevant and 

necessary or that any necessity outweighs the potential harm to 

the owners of the trade secret information. 

Range Resources’ Appellate Brief at 5. 

Preliminarily, we examine our jurisdiction to entertain this appeal.2 

“Generally, discovery orders are deemed interlocutory and not immediately 

appealable because they do not dispose of the litigation.” Pilchesky v. 

Gatelli, 12 A.3d 430, 435 (Pa. Super. 2011) (quoting Leber v. Stretton, 

928 A.2d 262, 265 (Pa. Super. 2007)); Makarov v. Lukenda, 856 A.2d 

____________________________________________ 

2

 In August 2014, this Court issued a rule to show cause why this appeal 

should not be quashed as interlocutory. Range Resources timely responded, 

claiming its appeal was appropriate pursuant to the collateral order doctrine. 

See Pa.R.A.P. 313. Thereafter, this Court discharged the rule, permitting 

the appeal to proceed but advising Range Resources that the issue of 

appealability may be revisited. See Order of Court, 08/27/2014, at 1. 

Appellees maintain that this appeal should be quashed. See Appellees’ Brief 

at 1. 
J-A07013-15 

- 4 - 

163, 164 (Pa. Super. 2004). However, “[a]n appeal may be taken as of 

right from a collateral order of ... a lower court.” Pa.R.A.P. 313(a); see 

Pilchesky, 12 A.3d at 437 (granting collateral review of the court-ordered 

disclosure of the identity of six John Doe defendants, purportedly in violation 

of their First Amendment rights); Crum v. Bridgestone/Firestone North 

American Tire, LLC, 907 A.2d 578, 584 (Pa. Super. 2006) (granting 

collateral review of orders denying a motion for a protective order and 

compelling a tire manufacturer to produce rubber compound formulas 

claimed to be trade secrets); Dibble v. Penn State Geisinger Clinic, Inc., 

806 A.2d 866, 870 (Pa. Super. 2002) (granting collateral review of an order 

denying a motion seeking to protect an HMO’s proprietary trade secrets). 

A collateral order is an order [1] separable from and collateral to 

the main cause of action where [2] the right involved is too 

important to be denied review and [3] the question presented is 

such that if review is postponed until final judgment in the case, 

the claim will be irreparably lost. 

Pa.R.A.P. 313(b). The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has admonished that 

the collateral order doctrine is narrow. Melvin v. Doe, 836 A.2d 42, 46-47 

(Pa. 2003). All three factors must be present before an order may be 

considered collateral. Id. at 47; Pilchesky, 12 A.3d at 436; Crum, 907 

A.2d at 583. 

We will focus on the second factor. In assessing importance, we 

“look[] for rights deeply rooted in public policy going beyond the litigation at 

hand ... and measure[] any such interests against the public policy interests 
J-A07013-15 

- 5 - 

advanced by adherence to the final judgment rule.” Pridgen v. Parker 

Hannifin Corp., 905 A.2d 422, 431 (Pa. 2006). Here, Range Resources 

asserts that the right to confidentiality in proprietary business information 

and trade secrets is too important to be denied review, citing in support 

Dibble, 806 A.2d at 870. See also MarkWest Liberty Midstream & 

Res., LLC v. Clean Air Council, 71 A.3d 337, 342 (Pa. Cmwlth. 2013) 

(citing Dibble and concluding that a dispute involving a natural gas 

company’s trade secrets and/or confidential business information was 

sufficiently important to warrant collateral review). 

We do not dispute this precedent. However, despite the recognized 

importance of protecting trade secrets, Range Resources is without standing 

to seek such protection here.3 

In seeking judicial resolution of a controversy, a party 

must establish as a threshold matter that he has standing to 

maintain the action. In Pennsylvania, the requirement of 

standing is prudential in nature. A challenge to the standing of a 

party to maintain the action raises a question of law. As this 

Court [has] explained ..., the core concept of standing is that a 

person who is not adversely affected in any way by the matter 

he seeks to challenge is not aggrieved thereby and has no 

standing to obtain a judicial resolution of his challenge. 

____________________________________________ 

3

 The Court may not raise standing sua sponte. See Rendell v. 

Pennsylvania State Ethics Comm’n, 603 Pa. 292, 983 A.2d 708, 717 

(2009). Appellees assert that Range Resources is without standing. See

Appellees’ Brief at 30-33 (arguing that Range Resources does not have a 

substantial, direct, and immediate interest in protecting the proprietary and 

trade secrets of third-parties and is, therefore, without standing). 
J-A07013-15 

- 6 - 

An individual can demonstrate that he has been aggrieved 

if he can establish that he has a substantial, direct and 

immediate interest in the outcome of the litigation. 

Fumo v City of Phila., 972 A.2d 487, 496 (Pa. 2009) (citations omitted);

see also Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560 (1992) 

(stating that a litigant “must have suffered an ‘injury in fact’ — an invasion 

of a legally protected interest which is (a) concrete and particularized ... and 

(b) ‘actual or imminent, not ‘conjectural’ or ‘hypothetical’”). 

Range Resources does not have a recognizable interest in the 

proprietary information it seeks to protect. To the extent the proprietary, 

chemical ingredients of products used at the Yeager Drill Site are entitled to 

protection, the right to assert such protection is held by the manufacturers 

of those products, not Range Resources. Seemingly, Range Resources 

recognizes this shortcoming, as it makes no attempt to persuade this Court 

otherwise. See, generally, Range Resources’ Appellate Brief; Reply Brief.4 

We discern no other right involved, which Range Resources may 

assert, that would satisfy the importance prong of the collateral order 

doctrine. The trial court’s June 2014 order merely resolves a discovery 

dispute, i.e., which party is responsible for identifying the constituent 

____________________________________________ 

4

 This Court has recognized previously federal precedent suggesting that an 

appellant has standing to raise certain First Amendment concerns on behalf 

of others. See Pilchesky, 12 A.3d at 437 n.9 (citing cases). However, 

such precedent is not relevant here. 
J-A07013-15 

- 7 - 

ingredients of products used at the Yeager Drill Site. Accordingly, it is 

interlocutory and not immediately appealable. Pilchesky, 12 A.3d at 435; 

Makarov, 856 A.2d at 164. To the extent Range Resources disagrees with 

the trial court’s decision, it may properly appeal following the entry of a final 

order.5 

Appeal quashed. 

Judge Mundy joins this memorandum. 

Judge Lazarus files a concurring memorandum. 

Judgment Entered. 

Joseph D. Seletyn, Esq. 

Prothonotary 

Date: 4/14/2015 

____________________________________________ 

5

 The June 2014 order does not identify sanctions resulting from 

noncompliance. Thus, at this point in the litigation, it is not clear whether 

Range Resources will incur any sanction should it fail to comply. We, of 

course, presume that the trial court will consider the circumstances 

surrounding any noncompliance prior to imposing any sanction.