Court Opinion

ID: 9698463
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 19:51:25.233346+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:41.176470
License: Public Domain

POPOVICH, Judge,
concurring and dissenting:
To the extent the Majority acknowledges the use of a “fault-based” standard for the imposition of delay damages, first enunciated by our Supreme Court in Craig v. Magee Memorial Rehabilitation Center, 512 Pa. 60, 515 A.2d 1350 (1986), I join in the remand requiring the trial court to conduct an evidentiary hearing to ascertain the presence of “fault” and its apportionment.
However, because the trial court made its determination regarding delay damages in conformance with what it believed was called for by Craig, the matter should be controlled by the procedure which existed prior to the promulgation of the November 7, 1988 new Rule 238. In any case, my belief is that the overriding consideration prior to the awarding of delay damages is the ascertainment of “fault” against the party whom the damages are sought to be imposed. Therefore, where purely administrative court-related matters impair the bringing a case to trial, I can see no justification for placing the mantle of liability, solely as a matter of course, upon a defendant.1 This, in my view, *109strikes of a pro forma application of Rule 238 violative of the spirit of the Rule and Craig.
Thus, for the reasons herein stated, I respectfully dissent to a portion of the Majority’s rationale implying that the calculation of delay damages against a defendant should be effectuated where he/she/it had no hand in the prolongation of the case to completion.

. It is interesting to note that on the criminal side, judicially caused delay is excluded from the running of the 180-day time-frame for *109bringing an accused to trial under Pa.R.Crim.P. 1100. See Comment to Rule 1100. Yet, the majority proposes to add court-related delay to the computation of delay damages. Although the former impacts on a defendant’s freedom of movement, while the latter is preoccupied with the deprivation of a defendant's proprietary interest in order to make the plaintiff "whole” monetarily, I can see no legitimate justification for excluding judicially caused delay in one and including it in the other.
I would treat both circumstances in the same manner and exclude that period of time attributable to judicially caused delay.