Opinion ID: 4407641
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Right-For-Any-Reason Doctrine

Text: The “right-for-any-reason” doctrine “allows an appellate court to affirm the trial court’s decision on any basis that is supported by the record.” In re A.J.R.-H., 188 A.3d 1157, 1175-76 (Pa. 2018) (citing Ario v. Ingram Micro, Inc., 965 A.2d 1194, 1200 (Pa. 2009)). The rationale behind the “right for any reason” doctrine is that appellate review is of “the judgment or order before the appellate court, rather than any particular reasoning or rationale employed by the lower tribunal.” Ario, 965 A.2d at 1200 (citing Hader v. Coplay Cement Mfg. Co., 189 A.2d 271, 274-75 (Pa. 1953)). As the United States Supreme Court has explained, “The reason for this rule is obvious. It would be wasteful to send a case back to a lower court to reinstate a decision which it had already made but which the appellate court concluded should properly be based on another ground within the power of the appellate court to formulate.” Sec. & Exch. Comm’n v. Chenery Corp., 318 U.S. 80, 88 (1943). Id. at 1176 (citations modified). However jurisprudentially economical the use of the doctrine may be, an appellate court is not bound to utilize it any time it can scour the record and find another basis upon which to affirm. The doctrine is, and always has been, discretionary and prudential. See id. at 1176 (“This Court has stated that an appellate court may apply the right for any reason doctrine . . . .”) (emphasis added); Commonwealth v. Wholaver, 177 A.3d 136, 145 (Pa. 2018) (“[I]t is well settled that this Court may affirm a valid judgment or order for any reason appearing as of record.”) (emphasis added); E. J. McAleer & Co. Inc. v. Iceland Prod., Inc., 381 A.2d 441, 443 n.4 (Pa. 1977) (“We may, of course, affirm the decision of the trial court if the result is correct on any ground without regard to the grounds which the trial court itself relied upon.”) (emphasis added). [J-107-2018] [MO: Baer, J.] - 5 The principal restraint upon an appellate court’s discretionary prerogative to apply the right-for-any-reason doctrine arises when the record does not contain a sufficient factual basis to support the new grounds for affirmance. As we explained most recently in In re A.J.R.-H., an appellate court may apply the doctrine if “the established facts support a legal conclusion producing the same outcome. It may not be used to affirm a decision when the appellate court must weigh evidence and engage in fact finding or make credibility determinations to reach a legal conclusion.” In re A.J.R.-H., 188 A.3d at 1176 (citing Chenery Corp., 318 U.S. at 88; Bearoff v. Bearoff Bros., Inc., 327 A.2d 72, 76 (Pa. 1974)). Thus, at the forefront of any inquiry into the propriety of the application of the rightfor-any-reason doctrine is the question of whether the newly asserted basis for affirmance is “of record,” i.e., whether the basis is supported by the existing factual record. In conducting this inquiry, we should not ignore how the record in this case was created. At no point before or during the evidentiary hearing on Shaffer’s motion did the Commonwealth raise the private search doctrine. Although the Commonwealth bears no issue-preservation duty as appellee, the arguments that it advanced in service of its initial burden at the suppression hearing played a significant role in the creation of the factual record. At the heart of any private search doctrine analysis is the question of whether the police officer’s subsequent actions exceeded those of the private citizen who conducted the first search.7 Had Shaffer been put on notice, actual or constructive, that he would have to rebut a private search argument, then or in the future, his counsel could have conducted the hearing differently, as any reasonably competent lawyer would. To defend against any private search claim, Shaffer’s counsel no doubt would have cross-examined 7 See Jacobsen, 466 U.S. at 115, 117; see also Maj. Op. at 20. [J-107-2018] [MO: Baer, J.] - 6 Eidenmiller in detail regarding the steps that the latter took until he eventually discovered the pornographic files. Counsel then would have inquired as extensively into Eidenmiller’s actions when Officer Maloney directed him to locate and display the files for the second time. Finally, counsel would have engaged in a similarly detailed examination of Officer Maloney. Only then would Shaffer have a factual record sufficient to oppose a claim of a private search and to argue that any discrepancies between the two searches (assuming that there were discrepancies and that the second search exceeded the first) rendered the private search doctrine inapplicable. At the very minimum, Shaffer should have had the opportunity to create a sufficient record. I do not maintain that notice always is a necessary precondition to application of the right-for-any-reason doctrine. Rather, under circumstances such as those presented here, the manner in which the record is created is both an important factor in an appellate court’s consideration of whether to apply the right-for-any-reason doctrine, and a significant factor in the crucial inquiry of whether the newly asserted basis for affirmance is “of record.” The sole inquiry from the outset of this case up to and through our grant of allocatur was whether Shaffer had an expectation of privacy in the laptop computer that he dropped off for repairs at CompuGig. That inquiry differs significantly from one assessing the private search doctrine. As a general matter, there are two essential elements that must be present before any search can be challenged constitutionally. The area searched must be an area in which the person challenging the search has a reasonable expectation of privacy, see Commonwealth v. Hawkins, 718 A.2d 265, 267 (Pa. 1998), and the search must be performed by a state actor. Commonwealth v. Price, 672 A.2d 280, 283 (Pa. 1996). The former element concerns whether the challenger has a privacy right in the area that was searched. The latter addresses the issue of who conducts the search. [J-107-2018] [MO: Baer, J.] - 7 These two elements entail different substantive analyses and examinations, both as to law and as to fact. The factual record created to establish one element cannot automatically be substituted as a sufficient factual record for the other. We cannot graft an evidentiary record focused entirely upon Shaffer’s expectation of privacy onto the Commonwealth’s new invocation of the private search doctrine. These are apples and oranges. To find a sufficient record basis for application of the private search doctrine, the Majority highlights a brief exchange between the Commonwealth’s attorney and Officer Maloney, as well as two limited interactions between Shaffer’s counsel and Officer Maloney.8 These excerpts cannot suffice as an evidentiary record that would enable a proper analysis of the private search doctrine under the facts and circumstances of this case. The Commonwealth was not attempting to establish that Officer Maloney’s examination of the computer did not exceed Eidenmiller’s initial actions. More importantly, a brief two question/and two answer exchange between Shaffer’s counsel and Officer Maloney that touched inadvertently upon matters that sometime later might be deemed pertinent to the private search doctrine is a far cry from the examination that would be necessary to build a record adequate to evaluate the private actor versus state actor dilemma. A review of one aspect of those exchanges will illustrate my point. When Officer Maloney was on the stand, Shaffer’s counsel asked him whether Eidenmiller, at the officer’s request, opened the file containing the pornographic images. Officer Maloney responded, “Yes, sir, he showed me the exact route taken to find the images.”9 The Majority construes this statement as conclusive evidence that Eidenmiller did, in fact, take 8 See Maj. Op. at 24-25. 9 N.T., 7/7/2016, at 30. [J-107-2018] [MO: Baer, J.] - 8 the same exact path in front of Officer Maloney, and, therefore, that Officer Maloney did not (and could not) exceed the scope of the private search. The problem is that Shaffer’s counsel did not test that statement through cross-examination. He simply let it go. The reason for the free pass is not difficult to discern. Shaffer’s counsel had no reason to know that the parallelism between the two searches would be an issue in the case, or that years later that one answer would form the factual basis to deny his client relief on a newly asserted, and entirely different, legal basis. Instead, counsel let Officer Maloney testify effectively to a legal conclusion without exploring the factual basis for that conclusion, through no fault of his own. No one would anticipate that a case would take on such a different character at the last stage of state appellate proceedings. That counsel, by happenstance or coincidence, stumbled upon one or two questions relevant to the new issue upon which this Court now chooses to focus does not mean that the record suffices for purposes of our discretionary application of the right-for-any-reason doctrine. Moreover, the problem is not only that the issue is not “of record.” The problem also is that it is inequitable to employ our discretionary authority to apply the right-for-anyreason doctrine here, inasmuch as the issue was thrust upon Shaffer only at this very late stage in the proceedings. When the Commonwealth raised the private search doctrine for the first time as its third argument in its brief to this Court, Shaffer was forced to respond to a new legal theory for the first time in his reply brief to this Court. Reply briefs, by rule, must be limited to 7000 words, and may not exceed fifteen pages.10 But the page limit is not the greatest obstacle that Shaffer must overcome. It is not what puts him at a significant disadvantage, not what hinders his ability to defend against the Commonwealth’s newly asserted theory. It is the state of the record in this case that 10 See Pa.R.A.P. 2135(a)(1). [J-107-2018] [MO: Baer, J.] - 9 precludes Shaffer effectively from defending against the new claim. The record before this Court is one tailored (“teed up,” as we say) specifically to the question of whether Shaffer retained an expectation of privacy in his laptop computer when he turned it over for repairs. It is not a record containing any meaningful evidentiary development of the facts necessary for evaluation of the private search doctrine in the context of this case. Shaffer is forced—in a reply brief—to try to make the record that we have suffice for the record that we need. He is forced to cram the proverbial square peg into a round hole. The right-for-any-reason doctrine is premised primarily upon the desirability of conserving judicial and prosecutorial resources. Laudable as that goal may be, we still must be judicious in our exercise of discretion, and we should not wield that tool when it would impose upon one litigant an inequitable handicap. We should apply the doctrine only when the newly invoked basis for relief truly is of record, and where the applicability of that new basis is sufficiently clear, such that further proceedings on remand would be a waste of time and resources. That is not the case here. There is another reason that I would not apply the right-for-any-reason doctrine in this case. As I discuss in greater detail in Part III below, Shaffer’s judgment of sentence should be affirmed on the merits of the question upon which we actually granted allocatur. In other words, there is no reason to find an alternative basis to affirm when the case, as is, necessitates affirmance on the precise question presented.