Court Opinion

ID: 9651222
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 16:10:38.176933+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:25:36.159854
License: Public Domain

OLSZEWSKI, Judge,
dissenting:
Given our standard of review in an appeal from a petition to open default judgment, I am compelled to dissent from the majority opinion. As this Court stated in Fink v. General Accident Insurance Co., 406 Pa.Super. 294, 594 A.2d 345 (1991), the trial court’s decision to deny a petition to open default judgment will not be reversed absent an abuse of discretion. The trial court found that Pietropaolo, as required, promptly filed his petition to open and that he offered a meritorious defense to the underlying claim. Id. The lower court, however, refused to open the judgment because it found that Pietropaolo did not provide a reasonable explanation for failing to respond to the complaint. It held that the insurance company’s six-week delay in transmitting the complaint to their counsel was inexcusable, especially since appellant took the complaint to the agency the day after he received it. Trial court opinion at pp. 3-4. I cannot hold that such a decision was an abuse of discretion.