Court Opinion

ID: 9643749
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 20:39:40.988337+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:03.254887
License: Public Domain

McEWEN, Judge,
concurring:
There can be no question but that the rationale for the decision of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in Byard F. Brogan, Inc. v. Holmes Electric Protective Company of Philadelphia, 501 Pa. 234, 460 A.2d 1093 (1983), with regard to Montgomery County Rule of Civil Procedure 302(d), is every bit as applicable to Montgomery County Rule of Civil Procedure 301(d). Certainly our courts must be slow to reject the cause of litigants in pro forma fashion since the failure of counsel to provide for technical compliance is a matter deserving of judicial review and of the exercise of judicial discretion. My study of the opinion of the hearing judge indicates, however, that the hearing judge did not proceed in the summary fashion prescribed by the Rule but, instead, considered the circumstances surrounding the delay as well as the reason for the failure of appellant to comply with the Rule before concluding that an appropriate sanction was to sustain the exceptions of appellee and to dismiss the exceptions of appellant. Nonetheless, as the majority notes, the order of the hearing judge specifically declares that the exceptions that had been filed by appellant “are, therefore, dismissed as required by M.C. R.C.P. 301(d).” We have, therefore, no alternative but to remand.