Court Opinion

ID: 9760341
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 00:48:47.210564+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:11.128701
License: Public Domain

MONTGOMERY, Judge,
dissenting:
I must respectfully dissent. In my opinion, the lower court did not err in its admission of the October 31, 1977 response letter from Appellant’s counsel to Appellee’s counsel.
Contrary to the conclusion reached by my Brethren in the Majority that the October 31,' 1977 letter constituted an expression of settlement or compromise, I believe that letter merely expresses an admission of responsibility by Appellant for several of the deficiencies and problems set forth in the Appellee’s counsel’s letter of August 31, 1977. The reply letter from Appellant’s counsel, which is set forth at length *287in the Majority Opinion, did not contain any single sentence, paragraph, or thought communicating either a proposal to settle or compromise the dispute between the Appellee and the Appellant, or a response to any offer of settlement or compromise. Accordingly, I do not believe that our Court needs to reach the issue of whether or not the letter is admissible as a statement made in the context of settlement negotiations. Rather, as the letter merely sets forth, in its relevant parts, admissions of responsibility by the Appellant, I conclude that it was properly allowed into evidence on that ground.
I also disagree with the Majority holding that the letter in issue, even if it were considered to communicate matters touching on settlement or compromise, should not have been admitted under prevailing legal precedent in our Commonwealth. The Majority Opinion notes that our Supreme Court has adopted the traditional common law analysis regarding the admission of such documents. As the Majority admits, in Mannella v. City of Pittsburgh, 334 Pa. 396, 6 A.2d 70 (1939), the Court stated: “While an offer to pay a sum of money to compromise a dispute is not admissible in evidence to prove that the sum offered was admitted to be due, the distinct admission of a fact is not to be excluded because it was accompanied by an offer to compromise the suit.” 334 Pa. at 403, 6 A.2d at 73. That rationale was based upon long-standing case precedent in this Commonwealth, including Sailor v. Hertzogg, 2 Pa. 182, wherein the Supreme Court, in 1846, stated:
It is never the intendment of the law to shut out the truth, but to repel any inference which may arise from a proposition made, not with the design to admit the existence of a fact, but merely to buy one’s peace. If, however, an admission is made because it is a fact, the evidence to prove it is competent, whatever motive may have prompted the declaration. If A. offers to B. ten pounds in satisfaction of his claim of a hundred pounds, merely to prevent a suit, or purchase tranquility, this implies no admission that any sum is due, and therefore *288the testimony to prove the fact must be rejected, because it evinces nothing concerning the merits of the controversy. But if A. admits a particular item in the account, or any other fact, meaning to make the admission as being true, this is good evidence, although the object of the conversation was to compromise an existing controversy. 2 Pa. at 186.
That view also finds support in: Heyman v. Hanauer, 302 Pa. 56, 152 A. 910 (1930); Rabinowitz v. Silverman, 223 Pa. 139, 72 A. 378 (1909); Arthur v. James, 28 Pa. 236 (1857); and Gogel v. Blazofsky, 187 Pa.Super. 32, 142 A.2d 313 (1958).
Instead of following this well-recognized line of precedents, the Majority has concluded that the established standard is not applicable as the letter in issue does not contain a “distinct admission” of fault. The Majority reaches the conclusion that it is possible to “infer” that the letter was in response to an offer of settlement or compromise from the Appellee’s counsel. I most strongly disagree with such findings as I do not believe they are supported by the clear wording contained in each letter. More specifically, the Appellee’s counsel, in his letter of August 31, 1977, alleged numerous deficiencies in the Appellant’s maintenance of the leased premises. In response to many such allegations, Appellant’s counsel repeatedly responded, in toto, in his October 31, 1977 letter: “Mulach accepts responsibility.” One simply cannot imagine a more clear example of an admission—“distinct” or otherwise. There appears to me to be no legal basis for excluding such admissions in view of the mandatory legal precedent established in Mannella v. City of Pittsburgh, supra, and the other cases previously cited. This is so even if the letter in issue also contained an offer of settlement or compromise. Thus, even if I agreed with my Brethren that the October 31, 1977 reply letter included matters touching on the subjects of settlement or compromise, I would nevertheless conclude that the clear and unqualified admissions set forth therein were properly *289admitted into evidence by the trial judge, under directly applicable legal precedents.1
I agree with the conclusion reached by the Majority as to the propriety of the jury’s award of attorney’s fees against the Appellant. Therefore, I believe an affirmance would be appropriate in this case.

. I also note that McCormick on Evidence, § 274, as pointed out in the Majority Opinion, states: “The generally accepted doctrine has been that an admission of fact in the course of negotiations is not privileged unless it is hypothetical—‘we admit for the sake of the discussion only’—or unless it is expressly stated to be ‘without prejudice’ or unless it is inseparably connected with the offer, so that it cannot be correctly understood without reading the two together.” While McCormick proceeds to criticize this prevailing doctrine, our Supreme Court has not departed from it, and we are not free to ignore it, as the Majority has in this case.