Court Opinion

ID: 9751252
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 16:16:52.549914+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:26:41.182936
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
Mu. Justice Bell:
I consider the majority’s decision very unfair. Plaintiff moved for judgment on the pleadings; the Court entered judgment for defendant without giving plaintiff an opportunity to amend.
*105Plaintiff avers tliat defendants orally agreed to a renewal of the lease and to waive written notice of plaintiff’s intention to renew the lease; and further, that plaintiff had paid defendants in full for all the coal in place, but had not been permitted to remove the coal for which it had paid in full. These averments in my opinion were sufficient to take the case to a Jury.
Written notice of the termination or renewal of a lease may be waived either by a subsequent oral agreement or by the acts and conduct of the parties: Gold v. Fox Film Corp., 304 Pa. 114, 155 A. 287; Smith, Executor v. Snyder, 168 Pa. 541, 32 A. 64.
A summary judgment will be entered only in a case that is clear and free from doubt: Waldman v. Shoemaker, 367 Pa. 587, 80 A. 2d 776; Kittaning Coal Co. v. Moore, 362 Pa. 128, 66 A. 2d 273.
Even if plaintiff failed to specifically plead the authority of one defendant to bind his co-lessors, the objection thereto is highly technical, does not go to the merits, and could and would have been immediately corrected if an amendment had been permitted. Furthermore, even on the present pleadings the case for defendants is not clear and free from doubt. Even if the motion for judgment on the pleadings had been made by defendants instead of by plaintiff, the least that a Court, in the interest of justice and fair play, should do under the facts pleaded in plaintiff’s bill of complaint, is to give plaintiff leave to amend.
I would reverse the decree of the Court below and grant plaintiff leave to amend its bill of complaint and allow a jury to decide the case on the merits.
Mr. Justice Musmanno joins in this Dissenting Opinion.