Court Opinion

ID: 9764504
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 03:24:52.969426+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:57.428738
License: Public Domain

KELLY, Judge,
concurring:
I wholeheartedly join the opinion of my esteemed colleague, the Honorable Donald E. Wieand, reversing the trial court’s order granting the defendant-hospital’s petition to transfer venue on the grounds of forum non conveniens after an earlier petition to transfer venue on the same grounds had been denied sixteen months earlier by a different presiding judge. The majority opinion properly holds that absent new evidence, it is improper for a succeeding judge to overrule the decisions of his or her predecessor. See Hutchison v. Luddy, 417 Pa.Super. 93, 108, 611 A.2d 1280, 1288 (1992); Salerno v. Philadelphia Newspapers, Inc., 377 Pa.Super. 83, 87, 546 A.2d 1168, 1170 (1988).
*511I write only to point out that in its improper consideration and disposition of the defendant-hospital’s petition to transfer venue on the same grounds as the earlier petition, the trial court also failed to give any weight to several factors which I believe are pertinent and should be factored into any decision to transfer venue. These factors are the timeliness of the defendant’s petition to transfer venue, the amount of discovery which has been completed in preparation for litigation in the chosen forum, and the status of the case on the trial court’s calender. See Wills v. Kaschak, 420 Pa.Super. 540, 617 A.2d 37.
Instantly, the defendant-hospital had waited more than three years to file its petition to transfer venue. Additionally, extensive discovery had already taken place in anticipation of a trial in the chosen forum. Finally, the case had been given an accelerated listing and was ready for trial. Accordingly, it is my belief that the defendant-hospital’s petition to transfer venue should have been denied even if it had been properly before the trial court.
Finally, although I am cognizant of the increased congestion in the Philadelphia trial courts (and in other trial courts in our large urban centers), this factor alone should not be viewed as giving trial judges carte blanche authority to transfer any case, at any time, which may be as conveniently litigated elsewhere. Indeed, as Justice Musmanno once observed, “If case load is to determine availability of the courts to injured persons, then justice has become a commodity dependent on the size of the courthouse and the number of personnel therein rather than on the intrinsic merit of claims filed by the litigants.” Rini v. New York Central Railroad Company, 429 Pa. 235, 242, 240 A.2d 372, 376 (1968) (Musmanno, J., dissenting); see also Greenfeig v. Seven Springs Farms, Inc., 416 Pa.Super. 580, 611 A.2d 767 (1992) (No. 2121 Pittsburgh 1991, slip opinion at 6-7, filed 8/7/92) (“Although we certainly recognize the tremendous burdens placed upon our courts by inadequate and unreasonable funding limitations, such circumstances do not provide the basis for a forum non conveniens transfer of a case from one county to another, when venue is properly laid in the first county”).
*512The underlying factors supporting the transfer of the instant case, should have been, or were known to exist by the defendant-hospital within a reasonable time after the filing of the complaint (i.e. location of defendant-hospital’s offices, appellant’s change of residence to Washington D.C., location of fact witnesses, county in which cause of action arose). The trial court’s apparent disregard of the three year delay in seeking the transfer, the extensive discovery that had already taken place in anticipation of a trial in the chosen forum and by placement of the case on the accelerated ready for trial list are further examples of the emphasis trial courts are placing on the congestion in the courts of our large urban centers when granting petitions to transfer. As this Court has cogently observed, a “trial court may not utilize a transfer of venue merely to control its docket, to preserve judicial resources, or to avoid deciding cases which are properly before it.” Horn v. Erie Insurance Exchange, 373 Pa.Super. 186, 189-90, 540 A.2d 584, 586 (1988). Thus, the trial court’s order transferring venue out of Philadelphia County merely to alleviate some of the congestion from the civil docket actually delayed the trial. See Wills v. Kaschak, supra (Kelly, J., dissenting)