Court Opinion

ID: 9765715
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 04:15:25.842366+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:14.395576
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
Wright, J.,
filed March 18, 1965, and reaffirmed after reargument:
To affirm the quashing of defendant’s appeal is, in my view, unduly harsh and entirely unnecessary. In Budde v. Sandler, 204 Pa. Superior Ct. 36, 201 A. 2d 247, I concurred only in the result. The opinion in that case has been criticized, not only in Morris v. Womble, to which the majority refers, but also in a *383scholarly article appearing in the current Temple Law Quarterly, Volume 38, page 159. It must be remembered that the law favors the right of appeal. See Womelsdorf v. Heifner, 104 Pa. 1; Romberger Appeal, 190 Pa. Superior Ct. 11, 151 A. 2d 805. The instant record discloses that defendant followed the customary practice under the Philadelphia Arbitration Rules, including payment of the fees of the arbitrators. Cf. Caples v. Klugman, 202 Pa. Superior Ct. 517, 198 A. 2d 342. He is now being penalized for failure to pay certain costs which, because of the filing of exceptions, had not yet been taxed. It should be noted that he did pay the costs demanded by the prothonotary, who marked on the docket “all record costs paid to date”. It should also be noted that defendant’s appeal bond covered all costs. To hold that an appeal must be quashed merely for failure to pay costs which were not taxed and hot demanded by the prothonotary, and which are in any event covered by the appeal bond, seems to me to constitute a miscarriage of justice.