Court Opinion

ID: 9638821
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 15:55:32.289088+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:09.978286
License: Public Domain

*600NEWMAN, Justice,
dissenting.
Because I believe that the trial court’s order, which denied Appellant’s motion to approve a settlement, is a collateral order appealable as of right pursuant to Pa.R.A.P. 313, I must respectfully dissent.
On March 6, 1997, the Court of Common Pleas of Lawrence County denied approval of the parties’ revised settlement agreement. On March 31, 1997, the Superior Court quashed the appeal of that order as interlocutory. We granted allocatur to determine whether the Superior Court erred in quashing as interlocutory the appeal from the order of the trial court rejecting a settlement between the estate of a deceased person and another. Today the majority determines that the Superior Court, did not err.
Pennsylvania Rule of Appellate Procedure 313(a) provides that an appeal may be taken as of right from a collateral order of a lower court. Section (b) defines a collateral order as an order “separable from and collateral to the main cause of action where the right involved is too important to be denied review and the question presented is such that if review is postponed until final judgment in the case, the claim will be irreparably lost.” Accordingly, under this rule an order must meet a three-prong test to qualify as a “collateral order;” separability, importance and urgency. Ben v. Schwartz, 690 A.2d 849, 851 (Pa.Cmwlth.1997).
The majority acknowledges that the order at issue meets the first and third prongs of the test for collateral orders, in that the order is separable from and collateral to the main cause of action, and that, if review is postponed until final judgment in the case, the question of whether the trial court abused its discretion in refusing to approve the settlement agreement will be irreparably lost. Accordingly, the majority focuses on the second prong of the three-part test, whether the right at issue is too important to be denied review, and finds that the claim stumbles on this factor. After consideration, the majority determines that, for purposes of defining an order under Rule 313, it is insufficient that the issue be *601important to the parties to the lawsuit but, rather, the issue must involve rights “deeply rooted in public policy”. The majority finds that only that type of claim “can be considered ‘too important to be denied review,’ ” and concludes that the instant matter involved no such claims. Because the claim at issue does involve interests that are deeply rooted in public policy, I emphatically disagree.
There is in our law a strong judicial policy in favor of parties voluntarily settling lawsuits. Rothman v. Fillette, 503 Pa. 259, 469 A.2d 543 (1983). A “primary reason to settle claims is that settlement is the faster way to get money into the hands of a victim of tortious conduct. A secondary reason is to reduce the burden on and expense of maintaining courts.” Id. at 546. As the court stated in Autera v. Robinson, 136 U.S.App.D.C. 216, 419 F.2d 1197, 1199 (1969), and as this Court quoted in Rothman:
Voluntary settlement of civil controversies is in high judicial favor. Judges and lawyers alike strive assiduously to promote amicable adjustments of matters in dispute, as for the most wholesome of reasons they certainly should. When the effort is successful, the parties avoid the expense and delay incidental to litigation of the issues; the court is spared the burdens of a trial and the preparation and proceedings that must forerun it.
Id., 469 A.2d at 546. The majority’s decision ignores these important policy reasons. The effect of the majority’s decision is to require the parties, who believe that they have already amicably settled their lawsuit, to prepare for trial nevertheless and to litigate their claims. Additionally, any damages due to defendants are necessarily delayed by the time it takes to try the case and to navigate the appeals process. The expenses of a trial, which all parties to the lawsuit wished to avoid likewise burden the court system.
The distinguishing factor in the case before us is that the parties, wishing to settle the lawsuit, could not do so without court approval. It was the trial court that refused to ratify a settlement agreement mutually entered into and agreed to by *602all of the parties involved in the instant lawsuit.1 Research has revealed no appellate caselaw in this Commonwealth in which a trial court’s refusal to approve such a settlement agreement was denied immediate appeal. In reaching its decision that the right involved is not important enough to merit immediate review, the majority, acknowledging the paucity of caselaw on the issue, found useful the discussions of the “importance” factor in the United States Supreme Court case of Digital Equipment Corporation v. Desktop Direct, Inc. 511 U.S. 863, 114 S.Ct. 1992, 128 L.Ed.2d 842 (1994),2 and the Third Circuit’s opinion in In re Ford Motor Company, 110 F.3d 954 (3d Cir.1997).3 However, these cases did not deal with the situation presented today, a court’s refusal to approve a settlement agreement mutually agreed to by parties to a lawsuit, all of whom legal counsel represent.
I recognize that the collateral order rule is to be narrowly construed to prevent the exception from subsuming the rule that only final orders are appealable. Van Der Loan v. Nazareth Hospital, 703 A.2d 540 (Pa.Super.1997). However, I am convinced that, according to the facts of this case, the claim at issue is too important to be denied review. Accordingly, because I believe that judicial review of a lower court’s refusal to approve a settlement agreement mutually agreed to by all parties to a lawsuit, when, by statute, the lawsuit cannot be settled without such approval, is a right too important to be *603denied review, I would remand this case to the Superior Court for determination of this case on the merits.
Justice CASTILLE joins this dissenting opinion.

. I note that the proposed settlement agreement provided for a distribution from the Appellant (the estate's original attorney) to the executor and beneficiaries of the estate, as well as attorney’s fees, totaling $65,000.00. I also note that that the trial court mentioned in its March 6, 1997 order that the estate owed taxes due and counsel fees. One can only speculate about the increase in taxes due and counsel fees generated by the continuation to trial of a case all parties have already completely "settled”, and question whether there will be a depletion of the assets of the estate.

. In Digital Equipment Corporation v. Desktop Direct, Inc., supra, the issue involved an order vacating a dismissal predicated on the parties’ settlement agreement.

. In re Ford Motor Company, supra, did not involve a settlement agreement. Instead, the case concerned the immediate appealability of a discovery order denying protection to certain documents claimed to be privileged pursuant to the attorney-client or work product doctrine. The court here held that the importance prong had been met.