Court Opinion

ID: 9700212
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 21:16:19.031244+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:05.443306
License: Public Domain

PRICE, Judge,
dissenting:
I applaud the efforts of the majority to support trial courts in their efforts to ease their backlog problems by adoption of strict calendar controls, and I too recognize that sometimes these controls must be relaxed to avoid unduly harsh results. (P. 133) I do not, however, agree that the circumstances of the present case justify a relaxation of those controls, nor do I agree that under these circumstances the court below reached an unduly harsh result.
There appeared a “Notice to the Bar” in The Legal Intelligencer, the official periodical of Philadelphia County for the publication of all notices,1 on December 9, 10, 11, 17 and 18, 1975, informing attorneys that all cases on appeal from arbitration would be assigned for trial starting January 5, 1976. A list of all of these cases, including the one now on appeal, also appeared at that time. Thereafter, additional notice appeared in the same publication a week in advance of the assignment of this case for January 16, 1976.
Appellant’s counsel, from a county other than Philadelphia, advances the novel excuse that she did not subscribe to The Legal Intelligencer and therefore had no notice of the trial date until sometime after January 13, 1976, when she received appellee’s trial brief. Even more novel than the excuse itself is the fact that apparently the majority of this court would accept it.
Budget Laundry Company v. Munter, 450 Pa. 13, 298 A.2d 55 (1972), has no application whatsoever to the case before us, and to attempt its application to these circumstances is, in my opinion, a complete distortion of the principles therein set forth. Budget Laundry presents a situation where all parties complied and responded to the notice provisions of *83trial, and only directs itself to a situation where the trial court must, upon adequate notice and proper response from attorneys, accept prior engagement of counsel as proper cause for a limited continuance.
The circumstances herein set forth are a far cry from Budget Laundry, and by its action today the majority encourages a flagrant disregarding of rules of court. In so doing they contribute to the continuing disintegration of a workable judicial system.
Any attorney who accepts a case, in any county of this Commonwealth, must also accept responsibility for knowledge of that county’s rules, and must abide by the provisions of those rules. To allow otherwise is simply to invite chaos.
I dissent and would affirm the entry of judgment.

. See Philadelphia General Civil Rule 100.