Court Opinion

ID: 9752236
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 17:50:56.98909+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:27:11.244581
License: Public Domain

DOYLE, President Judge,
Concurring.
While I agree with the Majority’s decision to deny the Public Utility Commission’s motion to quash, I would not deny the motion based on the reasoning in Westinghouse Electric Corp. v. Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission, 407 A.2d 65 (Pa.Cmwlth.1979).
In Westinghouse, we stated that Pa. R.A.P. 1701(b)(3) was not intended to render inoperative an issue on appeal that was not the subject of an application for reconsideration. The Westinghouse holding allows the issues in a case to be split between the court or the tribunal that granted reconsideration and the court hearing the appeal. In the instant case, applying Westinghouse, the Majority concludes that, despite the PUC order granting reconsideration, a pending issue remained and, accordingly, the appeal should not be quashed.
The problem with this analysis is that it conflicts with Pa. R.A.P. 341, as amended in 1992, which states that a final order is, among other things, an order that disposes of all claims and all parties. When reconsideration is granted to some, but not all, issues in a case, the order being appealed must be deemed interlocutory, since it no longer disposes of all claims. Plainly, Westinghouse sets forth a rule that is contrary to the letter and the spirit of the final order principles in Pa. R.A.P. 341, and, for that reason, I would hold that Westinghouse has been overruled by the 1992 amendments to Pa. R.A.P. 341.
Nevertheless, I believe that the PUC’s October 22, 1999 reconsideration order did not render the instant appeal inoperative under Pa. R.A.P. 1701, because the October 22nd order did not expressly grant reconsideration within the appeal period. Under Pa. R.A.P. 1701(b)(3), the PUC is required to expressly grant reconsideration within the time prescribed for filing the petition for review. Pennsylvania Industrial Energy Coalition v. Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission, 653 A.2d 1336 (Pa.Cmwlth.1995), aff'd, 543 Pa. 307, 670 A.2d 1152 (1996). The October 22nd order, however, states that reconsideration “is granted, pending review of, and consideration on, the merits.” (Emphasis added.) The PUC admits in its brief that this order was “interim in nature, pending final decision on the petition for reconsideration” (PUC’s brief at 36), and the record shows that the final decision on the petition was entered on November 4, 1999, when the PUC denied reconsideration. Therefore, the motion to quash was properly denied.
Judge LEADBETTER joins.