Court Opinion

ID: 9703211
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 23:45:14.80695+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:46.628022
License: Public Domain

CAVANAUGH, Judge,
dissenting:
I agree with the Majority that the instant case was properly brought in the Family Division. However, because the appeal is interlocutory and should be quashed, I dissent.
I agree with the Majority’s statement that “if none of the questions raised on this appeal involve a question of jurisdiction, the appeal must be quashed.” The order appealed from is interlocutory; however, a statute provides for an immediate appeal from orders determining questions of jurisdiction. 12 P.S. § 672 (repealed effective June 27,1980). I also agree that the question of whether there is an adequate remedy at law is not one of jurisdiction. However, I disagree that the issue of whether the instant case was commenced in the proper division of the Court of Common Pleas is an issue of jurisdiction. Several cases have held otherwise. Commonwealth ex rel. Stein v. Stein, 487 Pa. 1, 4, 406 A.2d 1381, 1383 n.l (1979); Binder v. Miller, 456 Pa. 11, 317 A.2d 304 (1974); Posner v. Sheridan, 451 Pa. 51, 299 A.2d 309 (1973); Sto-Rox Focus on Urban Renewal Neighborhood v. King, 40 Pa. Cmwlth. 640, 398 A.2d 241 (1979). Contra, Kohl v. Lentz, 454 Pa. 105, 311 A.2d 136 (1973).
In Posner v. Sheridan, supra, our Supreme Court stated that “the question [of which division of the court of common pleas the action should have been commenced in] ... is not one of jurisdiction but of internal common pleas court administration.” Id., 451 Pa. at 55, 299 A.2d at 311. Although the Majority discusses Posner v. Sheridan in detail, it disregards the statement I have just quoted even though the *361statement has been repeated by the Supreme Court on other occasions. Commonwealth ex rel. Stein v. Stein, supra; Binder v. Miller, supra.
In my view Binder v. Miller, supra, controls the instant case. There the defendant filed preliminary objections alleging that suit had been brought in the wrong division of the Court of Common Pleas. The lower court overruled the preliminary objections and the defendant appealed. The Supreme Court, in a per curiam opinion which relied on Posner v. Sheridan, supra, quashed the appeal as interlocutory since no question of jurisdiction was presented by the claim that suit was brought in the wrong division of the Court of Common Pleas.
The Majority, however, considers Binder v. Miller, “to be of uncertain precedential authority in light of the Supreme Court’s decisions in Estate of Hahn, 471 Pa. 249, 369 A.2d 1290 (1977), and in Estate of Phillips, 471 Pa. 289, 370 A.2d 307 (1977).” Majority opinion, ante n.3. Analysis of those decisions demonstrates that such a view is erroneous.
Estate of Hahn, supra and Estate of Phillips, supra are essentially the same. Therefore, my discussion of Estate of Hahn, applies to Estate of Phillips also.
In Estate of Hahn the executor in an orphans’ court proceeding filed a motion to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. This motion was denied and an appeal was filed. As in the instant case, the order appealed from was interlocutory and the only basis for appellate jurisdiction was the statute which the Majority holds allows an immediate appeal in the instant case. 12 P.S. § 672 (repealed effective June 27, 1980). This statute allows immediate appeals “in proceedings at law or in equity” from decisions involving, inter alia, subject matter jurisdiction. In Estate of Hahn the Majority of the Supreme Court held that proceedings in orphans’ court were not “proceedings at law or in equity” within the meaning of the statute. This holding was well supported by past precedent. See Estate of Shelly, 463 Pa. 430, 345 A.2d 596 (1975); Wormley Estate, 359 Pa. 295, 59 A.2d 98 (1948); Heinz’s Estate, 313 Pa. 6, 169 A.2d 365 (1933). Therefore the appeal was quashed.
*362Justice Pomeroy concurred. He criticized the rationale used by the Majority. In his view the court’s decision should have been based on the rationale that the question of which division of the Common Pleas Court the action should be commenced in is not a question of subject matter jurisdiction and hence is not appealable under the statute, 12 P.S. § 672. He also stated that “presumably” under the Majority’s rationale if an action was commenced in any division of the Court of Common Pleas, except orphans’ court, and a party challenged the choice of division, the Majority would allow an appeal under the statute on the ground that the appeal presented an issue of subject matter jurisdiction.
Justice Manderino dissented. In his view the question of which division of the Court of Common Pleas an action should be commenced in is a question of jurisdiction.
Thus in Estate of Hahn the Majority of the Supreme Court chose a well-settled precedent to decide that the appeal was interlocutory. It did not choose to rest its decision on the holding of Posner v. Sheridan, supra, that the question of which Common Pleas division an action should be commenced in is not a question of subject matter jurisdiction. Its failure to choose this latter rationale for its decision does not in my view establish that such rationale is no longer valid. Perhaps the Majority chose the rationale it relied on because such rationale was supported by older precedent (the cases cited by the Majority were decided as early as 1933, whereas Posner v. Sheridan was decided in 1973) and by precedent which had the support of more members of the court (the holding of Posner v. Sheridan, was subscribed to by only four members of the court).
The only support for the Majority’s view in the instant case that Estate of Hahn renders the precedential authority of Binder v. Miller “uncertain” is found in the concurring and dissenting opinions in Estate of Hahn. The Majority in Estate of Hahn does not express such a view. However, the concurring and dissenting opinions only express the view of two members of the Supreme Court; the Majority in Estate of Hahn does not state that Binder v. Miller on its underly*363ing rationale is no longer valid. Moreover, the concurring opinion expressly states that it presumes the Majority would hold such rationale was invalid. Further, two years after Estate of Hahn the Supreme Court in Commonwealth ex rel. Stein v. Stein, supra, reiterated its earlier view that the question of which division of the Common Pleas Court an action should have been commenced in is not a question of jurisdiction. Id., 487 Pa. at 5 n.1, 406 A.2d at 1383 n.1. Although it is true that the opinion in which this view is found was not joined by a Majority of the court and is therefore not precedential, e. g., Commonwealth v. Davenport, 462 Pa. 543, 342 Pa. 67 (1975), it still provides support for the continuing validity of the proposition of law on which I rely. I, therefore, conclude that Binder v. Miller, supra, is still valid precedent and hence controls the instant case.1
Finally, I note that the Majority’s holding that the instant case involves a question of subject matter jurisdiction has limited effect. Effective June 27, 1978 a statute provides in part that “each division of the court [of common pleas] is vested with the full jurisdiction of the whole court.” 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 952.2 Thus the Majority’s holding that the instant case involves a question of subject matter jurisdiction will not apply to cases to which 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 952 applies. Moreover the statute, 12 P.S. § 672, which allows immediate appeals from, inter alia, questions involving subject matter jurisdiction and which provides the basis for the *364Majority’s view that the instant appeal is immediately cognizable, has been repealed effective June 27, 1980.
Although I agree with the Majority’s view of the merits, I think a decision on the merits is premature; I would quash the appeal as interlocutory.

. The Majority also states that to hold that the instant case does not involve a question of jurisdiction would “deny appellate review no matter how patently erroneous a plaintiffs selection of division may be.” Majority Opinion ante n.3. Under my view appellate review would not be denied; it would merely be delayed until entry of a final order or appellate review could be immediately obtained if permission to appeal is granted under 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 702; Pa.R.A.P. 1311.

. § 952. The divisions of a court of common pleas are administrative units composed of those judges of the court responsible for the transaction of specified classes of the business of the court. In a court of common pleas having two or more divisions each division of the court is vested with the full jurisdiction of the whole court, but the business of the court may be allocated among the divisions of the court by or pursuant to general rules. 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 952.