Court Opinion

ID: 9696931
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 19:01:49.935649+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:27.845331
License: Public Domain

CIRILLO, President Judge,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent. I would affirm the trial court’s order striking the dismissal and opening the judgment.
Although I have no quarrel with the majority’s statement of the law, I disagree with their application of the law to these facts. The trial court’s order of August 8, 1985 striking the dismissal and opening the judgment was a *16nullity absent a showing of grave or compelling circumstances constituting “extraordinary cause.” The question then, is whether the record reveals extraordinary cause justifying intervention by the trial court some three months after its power to open the judgment was lost. Unlike the majority, I believe that extraordinary cause to open the judgment is present in this case.
The trial court based its decision to strike the dismissal and open the judgment upon the affidavits by counsel for both parties and the possibility of error by the postal system. In his affidavit, counsel for appellees averred that on the evening of March 11, 1985, he personally placed in a mailbox an envelope containing a cover letter and three copies of the answers to appellant’s interrogatories. After a hearing on the matter and review of affidavits, the trial court accepted this averment as fact and determined it to be a “reasonable excuse for the default.” The court did so despite the fact that the original answers were not received by the trial court prothonotary until April 11, 1985, and then only as an exhibit to appellees’ petition, and despite the contrary averment of appellant’s counsel that no such forwarding occurred and that the items were never received. We are bound by the trial court’s finding of fact unless it is not based upon competent evidence. Allegheny County v. Monzo, 509 Pa. 26, 35-37, 500 A.2d 1096, 1101 (1985). Here, the trial court’s finding was based in part upon evidence in the form of affidavits.
While we are bound by the trial court’s findings of fact, we are in no way bound by its conclusions of law. 2401 Pennsylvania Ave. Corp. v. Federation of Jewish Agencies of Greater Philadelphia, 507 Pa. 166, 171-72, 489 A.2d 733, 736 (1985). To the contrary, a reviewing court is free to draw its own inferences and conclusions from the facts as established. Minteer v. Wolfe, 300 Pa.Super. 234, 237-38, 446 A.2d 316, 318 (1982).
Based upon the trial court’s express finding of possible oversight by the postal system, I would conclude that a showing of extraordinary cause has been made, and that *17the trial court was thereby justified in opening the judgment despite the expiration of the appeal period. In the somewhat analogous case of Great American Credit Corp. v. Thomas Mini Markets, Inc., 230 Pa.Super. 210, 326 A.2d 517 (1974), this Court upheld a grant of similar relief when a mailing was misplaced due to trial court oversight. There we stated that “where equity demands, the power of the court to open and set aside its judgments may extend well beyond the term in which the judgment is entered.” 230 Pa.Super. at 213, 326 A.2d at 519. Such reasoning is applicable here.
In sum, because the majority fails to conclude that extraordinary cause was present in this case, I cannot join in their opinion.