Court Opinion

ID: 9965869
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-05-03 17:09:25.231511+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:25:48.042378
License: Public Domain

J-S07017-24

NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT O.P. 65.37

  BARBARA J. SPANGLER AND C.A.                 :   IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF
  SPANGLER BOARDS, INC.                        :        PENNSYLVANIA
                                               :
                       Appellant               :
                                               :
                v.                             :
                                               :
  DAVID S. CAVANAUGH & DEBORAH                 :
  CAVANAUGH; D.S. CAVANAUGH                    :
  BOARDS, LLC                                  :   No. 1287 MDA 2023

            Appeal from the Judgment Entered August 28, 2023
    In the Court of Common Pleas of York County Civil Division at No(s):
                           2016-SU-000893-67

BEFORE:      LAZARUS, P.J., KUNSELMAN, J., and COLINS, J.*

JUDGMENT ORDER BY KUNSELMAN, J.: FILED: MAY 3, 2024

       Plaintiffs, Barbara Spangler and C.A. Spangler Boards, Inc. appeal from

the judgment entered, after the trial court entered a nonsuit against them.

We dismiss their appellate issues as waived and affirm.

       Because our decision rests on procedural grounds, we briefly relate the

underlying facts.     Mr. Cavanaugh served as general manager of Spangler

Boards, which Barbra Spangler solely owned. Because she was busy running

her accounting firm, Mrs. Spangler did not know how to manage Spangler

Boards. As such, she relied upon and trusted Mr. Cavanaugh to do so.

       In September of 2014, Mr. Cavanaugh created D.S. Cavanaugh Boards,

LLC. A month later, he resigned from Spangler Boards and began competing

with it.   Mrs. Spangler and Spangler Boards sued Mr. Cavanaugh and his
____________________________________________

* Retired Senior Judge assigned to the Superior Court.
J-S07017-24

company. The Plaintiffs claimed Mr. Cavanaugh breached his fiduciary duty,

because a confidential relationship existed between Mr. Cavanaugh and the

Plaintiffs. See Second Amended Complaint at 10-18.

      The matter proceeded to a jury trial. At the close of the Plaintiffs’ case,

the trial court imposed a compulsory nonsuit. It denied post-trial relief, and

this timely appeal followed.

      On September 13, 2023, the trial court ordered the Plaintiffs to file a

Rule 1925(b) statement of errors complained of on appeal. The order required

them to file the statement “no later than 4:30 p.m. TWENTY-ONE (21) days

after the date of the entry of this Order.” T.C.O., 9/13/23, at 1. The court

warned them that “[a]ny issues not included in the statement timely filed

and served pursuant to Pa.R.A.P. 1925(b) shall be deemed waived.”            Id.

(emphasis added).

      The Plaintiffs filed their 1925(b) statement electronically, on October 4,

2023, at 4:36 p.m., i.e., six minutes after the deadline and after the Office of

the Prothonotary of York County had closed. The trial court concluded that

the untimely statement results in the waiver of all appellate issues. See Trial

Court Opinion, 10/10/23, at 1-2. The Plaintiffs offer no rebuttal in their brief.

Mr. Cavanaugh and his company agree with the trial court’s waiver analysis.

See Cavanaugh’s Brief at 3, n.2.

      “Filing of a Rule 1925 concise statement when ordered is a prerequisite

to appellate merits review and is elemental to an effective perfection of the

appeal.” Commonwealth v. Burton, 973 A.2d 428, 432 (Pa. Super. 2009)

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(en banc) (quotations omitted). The failure to file a timely 1925(b) statement

results in the waiver of all issues. See Commonwealth v. Castillo, 888 A.2d

775, 780 (Pa. 2005), and Greater Erie Indus. Dev. Corp. v. Presque Isle

Downs, Inc., 88 A.3d 222, 223 (Pa. Super. 2014) (en banc).

      Even though the Plaintiffs electronically filed their 1925(b) statement a

mere six minutes after the deadline, the Prothonotary’s office had closed for

business that day. Thus, the trial court did not receive the statement until

the following day. Clearly, the 1925(b) statement was untimely.

      Neither the trial court nor this Court has any discretion to consider an

untimely 1925(b) statement, because the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania has

explicitly condemned the ad hoc acceptance of late statements. As the High

Court has explained:

      Allowing for discretion regarding timeliness will result in
      inconsistencies. For example, when faced with the lack of a timely
      Pa.R.A.P. 1925(b) statement, one trial court might file quickly and
      efficiently an opinion waiving all issues, while another might
      address the issues it believes the appellant will raise, and still
      another might delay filing an opinion until a statement is received.
      If the appellant in each hypothetical case eventually files an
      equally untimely statement, the appellate court in the first case
      [might] waive the issues that the trial court waived, while in the
      second two scenarios . . . the appellate court [might] address the
      issues, so long as the trial court addressed the same issues in its
      opinion. As a result, the same factual situation could produce
      diametrically opposed results, depending on how quickly a trial
      court files its opinion after the expiration of the Pa.R.A.P. 1925(b)
      filing period . . . [W]e decline to adopt a position which will yield
      unsupportable distinctions between similarly situated litigants.

Castillo, 888 A.2d at 779.

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      Thus, there is no such thing as de minimis lateness when it comes to a

1925(b) statement. “[I]t is no longer within this Court’s discretion to ignore

the internal deficiencies of Rule 1925(b) statements,” including an untimely

filing. Greater Erie, 88 A.3d at 224.

      Under Castillo and Greater Erie, supra, we must dismiss all of the

Plaintiff’s appellate issues as waived.

      Judgment affirmed.

Judgment Entered.

Benjamin D. Kohler, Esq.
Prothonotary

Date: 5/3/2024

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