Court Opinion

ID: 9701231
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 22:11:29.798199+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:21.094602
License: Public Domain

*258WIEAND, Judge,
concurring:
I concur fully in the Court’s decision to affirm the learned trial court’s order refusing to strike the judgment. I write separately for the purpose of noting my disagreement with the current notion that a motion to strike a judgment is discretionary with the trial court. As the author of the majority opinion correctly observes, “[a] motion to strike a judgment operates as a demurrer to the record and will only be granted if a fatal defect or irregularity appears on the face of the record.” See: Franklin Interiors v. Wall of Fame Management Co., Inc., 510 Pa. 597, 599, 511 A.2d 761, 763 (1986); Parliament Industries, Inc. v. William H. Vaughan & Co., Inc., 501 Pa. 1, 8, 459 A.2d 720, 724 (1983). This is a legal issue. A motion to strike, therefore, is not an appeal to the equitable powers of the court; and it is not discretionary with the court. If the record is not self-sustaining, the judgment must be stricken. Franklin Interiors v. Wall of Fame Management Co., Inc., supra at 600, 511 A.2d at 763. The flip side of the rule requires that a motion to strike a judgment be denied when there is no defect apparent on the face of the record. It follows as clearly as summer follows spring that a trial court’s disposition of a motion to strike a judgment can be reviewed only for error of law. Therefore, an appellate court must conduct its own examination of the record to determine whether the judgment is patently defective. In conducting, such review, the appellate court has no greater discretion than the trial court. The issue to be decided is a pure issue of law.
In this respect, a motion to strike a judgment must be distinguished from a motion to open a judgment. It is the motion to open judgment which is an appeal to the equitable powers of the court, and a court’s decision thereon will not be reversed on appeal absent an abuse of discretion.
My review in the instant case persuades me, for reasons well stated in the majority opinion, that in refusing to strike the judgment the trial court did not commit an error of law. Therefore, I agree that its order should be affirmed.
McEWEN, BECK and KELLY, JJ., join.