Court Opinion

ID: 9756896
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 22:06:58.013367+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:32.848848
License: Public Domain

BECK, Judge,
dissenting:
I cannot accept the majority’s reasoning that, despite a per curiam supreme court order involving an appeal which I consider legally indistinguishable from the instant case, the appellees’ motion to quash this appeal should be denied. Hutchison v. Luddy, 527 Pa. 525, 594 A.2d 307 (1991), reversing Hutchison v. Luddy, 398 Pa.Super. 505, 581 A.2d 578 (1991). Instead I am constrained to conclude that the instant appeal is from an order which, according to the supreme court, was not final and, therefore, not appealable.
In the superior court opinion in Hutchison v. Luddy, supra, 398 Pa.Super. at 510-512, 581 A.2d at 580-581, this court reviewed, in relevant part, a trial court’s order in Somerset County which denied the Church Parties’ motion to seal all discovery records. The majority in Hutchison found, and I specifically agreed, that our court possessed subject matter jurisdiction over the appeal because the *118order denying the motion to seal the records fell within the “collateral order” exception to the final judgment rule. Our reasoning in that case regarding the applicability of the “collateral order” exception paralleled the majority’s reasoning here and cited Cohen v. Beneficial Industrial Loan Corp., 337 U.S. 541, 69 S.Ct. 1221, 93 L.Ed. 1528 (1949) and Pugar v. Greco, 483 Pa. 68, 394 A.2d 542 (1978), as does the majority here.
Nevertheless, despite agreeing that subject matter jurisdiction under Cohen and Pugar was proper, I wrote separately in Hutchison v. Luddy, 398 Pa.Super. at 516-518, 581 A.2d at 584-585, in order to state my view that no party was as yet arguably aggrieved by the trial court’s refusal to seal the record because discovery had not yet begun. In a separate opinion in Hutchison, supra, I articulated the view that the discovery issue was, therefore, not ripe for review. I concluded, therefore, that the trial court properly denied the parties’ motion to seal the discovery records because discovery had not yet commenced. This was not a Cohen analysis but a conclusion that there were as yet no discovery materials upon which the trial court could act.
The supreme court, in a per curiam opinion cited above, reversed this court’s order insofar as we reversed the trial court’s denial of the motion to seal the record. Despite the instant majority’s assertion to the contrary, the supreme court did not base its action on the position expressed in my concurring and dissenting opinion. Instead, the supreme court specifically stated that the order “was not final and, therefore, not appealable”, and cited Pugar v. Greco, supra, and Cohen, supra. I can come to no other conclusion but that the supreme court specifically reversed our court’s conclusion that an order denying the sealing of a record is final under Cohen and therefore appealable. In the wisdom of the supreme court, such an order does not satisfy the prerequisites of Cohen, is not final and is not appealable. We are bound by that judgment.
Finally, I see no basis for distinguishing this case from the previous Hutchison appeal on the grounds that in *119Hutchison I we were dealing with an order denying a motion to seal and here we are reviewing an order removing a seal from a record. In fact, in a related matter, considering a prior motion to quash in the instant case, this court stated in a per curiam order that “an order removing a seal from a record is indistinguishable from an order denying the sealing of a record”, for purposes of appealability.1
Therefore, despite my previously held view regarding the appealability of such orders pursuant to Cohen, I conclude that we are bound by the supreme court’s per curiam opinion and on that basis must grant appellees’ motion to quash.

. Appellees filed a motion to quash this appeal on May 8, 1991. In a per curiam order, part of which is quoted above, this court denied the motion to quash and found the instant order appealable on the basis of our decision in Hutchison v. Luddy, 398 Pa.Super. 505, 581 A.2d 578 (1991). Thereafter, in light of the supreme court’s reversal of this court’s order on appealability grounds, appellees filed a second motion to quash. We granted appellees leave to argue the second motion at oral argument in Pittsburgh.