Court Opinion

ID: 9729645
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 14:45:32.949261+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:00.347613
License: Public Domain

FORD ELLIOTT, Judge,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent. I disagree with the result reached by the majority, as I believe that we must narrowly focus on the issue before this court; that is, whether the trial court abused its discretion in denying appellant’s nunc pro tunc appeal. As the majority states, appellant was required to produce evidence of fraud or a wrongful or negligent act by a court official which caused him to forego his right to a timely statutory appeal of his January 1993 conviction. Conrad v. Kemmerer, 301 Pa.Super. 410, 412-13, 447 A.2d 1032, 1034 (1982). In addition, appellant must establish that he acted promptly in seeking an appeal once learning of the existence of the grounds relied upon for such requested relief. Commonwealth v. Bassion, 390 Pa.Super. 564, 568 A.2d 1316 (1990). Even assuming arguendo that appellant was mislead by the information given to him by the District Justice, there is no evidence in the record that appellant acted promptly in filing his petition for allowance of appeal nunc pro tunc. As such, I would affirm the decision of the trial court.
To show that he acted promptly in seeking his appeal, appellant, in his brief to this court, describes the following events. In a letter dated March 12, 1993, the Department of Transportation (Department) advised him that because of his conviction of January 15, 1933, of driving while under suspension, his operating privileges would be suspended for one year effective April 16, 1993. In response to the Department’s *285letter, appellant asserts that he filed a pro se appeal in the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County on April 6, 1993, and was given a license suspension appeal hearing date of September 22, 1993. In anticipation of the hearing, appellant retained counsel in mid-September. Because the impending hearing regarding appellant’s one-year license suspension would not address the underlying conviction, counsel filed a petition for allowance of appeal nunc pro tunc on November 9, 1993.1 In this manner, appellant could attack the January 15, 1993 conviction for his June 2,1989 citation to which he claims the district justice had no jurisdiction, as 75 Pa.C.S.A. § 5553(e) mandates that proceedings in the court of common pleas for summary motor vehicle offenses must be completed within two years of the date of the offense.2 (Appellant’s brief at 5.)
Although appellant explains to this court the delay in filing his appeal, none of this evidence was presented to Judge Doyle. Namely, Judge Doyle was not apprised of the notice of suspension sent by the Department on March 12, 1993, nor is this notice contained in the original record. In addition, evidence that appellant filed a pro se appeal on April 6, 1993, challenging his license suspension is also not of record. Neither in his petition to the trial court nor at the hearing did appellant offer any explanation as to why he waited until November 9, 1993, to appeal his January 15, 1993 conviction.3 *286As appellant failed to present any evidence that he acted promptly in filing his petition for allowance of appeal nunc pro tunc, I am constrained to affirm the decision of the trial court.

. Although appellant's Petition for Allowance of Appeal Nunc Pro Tunc was not filed until November 9, 1993, according to the record appellant presented the petition to the court on October 14, 1993, at which time the petition was argued. The order denying appellant’s Petition for Allowance of Appeal was signed October 26, 1993. For purposes of uniformity, I will use the filing date of November 9, 1993.

. I believe that subject matter jurisdiction is not at issue, as 42 Pa. C.S.A. § 5553(e) is a statute of limitations which defense can be waived. See Commonwealth v. Stover, 372 Pa.Super. 35, 538 A.2d 1336 (1988), appeal denied, 520 Pa. 604, 553 A.2d 967 (1988).

. Both the notice from the Department and appellant’s statutory appeal are appended to his brief. However, as the majority states, information contained in an appellate brief is not a substitute for a deficiency in the official record and may not be looked at by this appellate court to fill the void. Commonwealth v. Rini, 285 Pa.Super. 475, 427 A.2d 1385 (1985).