J-S39031-19

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* Former Justice specially assigned to the Superior Court.

NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT I.O.P. 65.37

DONTE RUFFIN, 

Appellant

v.

DESH UNITED CORPORATION, 

MOHAMMAD A. HOSSAIN, FIESTA 

PIZZA AND ABDELHALIM ABDELKARI

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 IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF

 PENNSYLVANIA

 No. 1755 EDA 2018

Appeal from the Judgment Entered April 27, 2018

In the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County Civil Division at 

No(s): October Term 2015, No. 3327

BEFORE: GANTMAN, P.J.E., STABILE, J., and STEVENS*, P.J.E.

MEMORANDUM BY STEVENS, P.J.E.: FILED AUGUST 21, 2019

Appellant Donte Ruffin appeals from the order of the Philadelphia Court 

of Common Pleas entering judgment in favor of Appellees Desh United 

Corporation, Mohammad A. Hossain, Fiesta Pizza, and Abdelhalim Abdelkari. 

Appellant argues that the trial court abused its discretion in allowing certain 

evidence to be admitted at trial. We remand for the trial court to prepare a 

supplemental Pa.R.A.P. 1925(a) opinion.

The trial court summarized the factual background and procedural 

history of this case as follows:

On January 16, 2015, Appellee Abdelhalim Abdelkari was 

delivering pizzas for Fiesta Pizza in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. At 

the intersection of 52nd Street and Chester Avenue, the Appellee 

suddenly backed his vehicle up and caused an accident with 

Appellant Donte Ruffin.
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On January 16, 2015, the Appellant brought a civil action against 

the Appellees Desh United Corporation, Fiesta Pizza, [] 

Mohammed A. Hossain[, and Abdelhalim Abdelkari.] On February 

1, 2017, the matter went to Arbitration, where the Appellant was 

awarded $25,886.00. Appellees filed a notice of appeal from the 

arbitrators’ award on March 6, 2017 and trial began on November 

14, 2017. On November 16, 2017, the jury found for Appellee 

Abdelhalim Abdelkari. 

Trial Court Opinion, 10/30/16, at 1-2.

On November 27, 2017, Appellant filed a post-trial motion. As the trial 

court took no action on this motion for over 120 days, Appellees filed a 

praecipe for the entry of judgment on the verdict, which the Prothonotary 

entered on April 27, 2018. See Pa.R.C.P. 227.4.1 Thereafter, Appellant filed 

a notice of appeal on May 29, 2018 and a Statement of Matters Complained 

of on Appeal on August 17, 2018. 

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1 The relevant provisions of Rule 227.4 provide as follows:

In addition to the provisions of any Rule of Civil Procedure or Act 

of Assembly authorizing the prothonotary to enter judgment upon 

praecipe of a party, the prothonotary shall, upon praecipe of a 

party:

(1) enter judgment upon the verdict of a jury or the decision of a 

judge following a trial without jury, or enter the decree nisi as the 

final decree, if

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(b) one or more timely post-trial motions are filed and the court 

does not enter an order disposing of all motions within one 

hundred twenty days after the filing of the first motion. A 

judgment entered pursuant to this subparagraph shall be final as 

to all parties and all issues and shall not be subject to 

reconsideration[.]

Pa.R.C.P. 227.4.
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As an initial matter, we review the trial court’s finding that this appeal 

should be dismissed as untimely filed. Pa.R.A.P. 903(a) provides that 

“[e]xcept as otherwise prescribed by this rule, the notice of appeal required 

by Rule 902 (manner of taking appeal) shall be filed within 30 days after the 

entry of the order from which the appeal is taken.” Pa.R.A.P. 903(a). 

However, our rules of statutory construction provide:

When any period of time is referred to in any statute, such period 

in all cases ... shall be so computed as to exclude the first and 

include the last day of such period. Whenever the last day of any 

such period shall fall on Saturday or Sunday, or on any day made 

a legal holiday by the laws of this Commonwealth or of the United 

States, such day shall be omitted from the computation.

1 Pa.C.S.A. § 1908 (emphasis added).

Although the trial court points out that Appellant’s notice of appeal was 

filed 31 days after judgment was entered on the verdict, the trial court failed 

to recognize that the 31st day fell on Monday, May 28, 2018, which was 

Memorial Day, a legal holiday. As a result, the instant appeal filed on May 29, 

2018 was timely.

Both of Appellant’s claims on appeal challenge the trial court’s discretion 

in admitting certain evidence at trial.

We review a trial court's evidentiary decisions for an abuse 

of discretion. See Schmalz v. Mfrs. and Traders Trust Co., 67 

A.3d 800, 802–03 (Pa. Super. 2013); Smith v. Paoli Mem'l 

Hosp., 885 A.2d 1012, 1016 (Pa.Super. 2005) (“Decisions 

regarding admission of expert testimony, like other evidentiary 

decisions, are within the sound discretion of the trial court.”) 

(citations omitted). In this context, “[d]iscretion is abused when 

the course pursued represents not merely an error of judgment, 

but where the judgment is manifestly unreasonable or where the 
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law is not applied or where the record shows that the action is a 

result of partiality, prejudice, bias or ill will.” Schmalz, supra at 

803, (citation omitted). “To reverse the trial court, the [S]uperior 

[C]ourt must consider all the evidence in the light most favorable 

to the appellee and conclude that the verdict would be changed if 

another trial were granted.” Woodard v. Chatterjee, 827 A.2d 

433, 440 (Pa.Super. 2003) (citation omitted) (brackets in 

original).

Hassel v. Franzi, 207 A.3d 939, 950 (Pa.Super. 2019).

Specifically, Appellant argues that the trial court abused its discretion in 

admitting into evidence contents of the police report made at the time of the 

accident and in allowing opposing counsel to reference the parties’ prior 

arbitration hearing that had not been transcribed. Appellant preserved both 

of these claims by objecting at trial and raising these specific arguments in his 

post-trial motion and his Rule 1925(b) statement.

However, we note that the trial court did not provide its reasons for 

denying Appellant’s evidentiary challenges on the record or respond to his 

arguments in its 1925(a) opinion. As our standard of review requires this 

Court to review the trial court’s discretion in ruling on evidentiary matters, we 

are constrained to remand the record in this matter for the preparation of a 

supplemental Pa.R.A.P. 1925(a) opinion. The trial court shall file a 

supplemental opinion addressing both of Appellant’s evidentiary challenges 

within 45 days of this memorandum. Appellant shall file a supplemental brief, 

if necessary, within 20 days of receipt of the trial court's Rule 1925(a) opinion. 
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Appellee shall file a brief,

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if necessary, within 20 days of receipt of 

Appellant's supplemental brief.

Record remanded with instructions. Panel jurisdiction retained. 

Application for Extension of Time to File Appellate Brief denied.

Judgment Entered.

Joseph D. Seletyn, Esq.

Prothonotary

Date: 8/21/2019

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2 On August 9, 2019, counsel for Appellees filed a request for an extension of 

time to file an appellate brief responding to the trial court’s original opinion 

that incorrectly deemed this appeal to be untimely filed. Given our decision 

to remand for the preparation of a supplemental trial court opinion, we deny 

this motion and direct counsel for Appellees to follow the instructions set forth 

in this decision.