Court Opinion

ID: 9751570
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 16:37:16.879078+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:26:52.368812
License: Public Domain

Concurring Opinion by
Mr. Justice Manderino :
I join in the majority opinion by Mr. Justice Roberts holding that the rule of basic and fundamental error is a rule without specific standards and should be abolished. The abolition of the rule, I should like to add, does not leave an aggrieved party without a remedy.
Issues not raised in the trial court because of ineffective assistance of counsel may be reviewable on appeal in a criminal case. Commonwealth ex rel. Washington v. Maroney, 427 Pa. 599, 235 A.2d 349 (1967), sets forth specific standards which are applicable in determining whether counsel was effective in a criminal case.
An aggrieved party in a civil case, involving only private litigants unlike a defendant in a criminal case, does not have a constitutional right to the effective assistance of counsel. The remedy in a civil case, in which chosen counsel is negligent, is an action for malpractice.