Court Opinion

ID: 9760100
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 00:40:27.091367+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:08.302302
License: Public Domain

McEWEN, Judge,
dissenting:
The majority expresses its view in fine and careful fashion but I respectfully dissent. The plaintiff corporation maintains a principal place of business in New Jersey, the defendant is a New Jersey corporation, the contract under which the dispute arose was executed in New Jersey and the work to be performed under the contract was to be performed in New Jersey.
*163The Philadelphia County Common Pleas Court dismissed the suit by sustaining the preliminary objections of the defendant to the jurisdiction of the Pennsylvania Courts, presumably because it concluded the forum for this litigation should be in New Jersey. I am not prepared to declare that decision was error.
The majority is quite correct that the pertinent statute confers jurisdiction of this suit upon the courts of this Commonwealth were it to be shown that the corporate defendant carries on “a continuous and systematic part of its general business within the Commonwealth.” 42 Pa.C.S. § 5301.
Since it was the plaintiff corporation which pleaded that the defendant corporation systematically did business in Pennsylvania and was, therefore, properly subjected to suit in Pennsylvania, it was, therefore, the duty of the plaintiff corporation to schedule a hearing to present such evidence as it deemed adequate to prove that allegation. The plaintiff did not do so but I do not agree that when the litigant so fails it becomes the responsibility of the court to prod a party into the presentation of evidence. When the matter was called for disposition, the posture of the record of the case was such that the court had no alternative but to dismiss the suit. For that reason, I would affirm.