Court Opinion

ID: 9700259
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 21:17:39.071528+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:08:04.809939
License: Public Domain

McEWEN, Judge,
dissenting.
The author of the lead opinion provides an insightful and persuasive expression of view, and I differ with neither the actual scenario depicted by that opinion, nor with the legal principle upon which it relies. However, I am obliged, most respectfully, to this statement of dissent since I differ with the application of that prevailing principle to the facts of this case. The chronology of the pertinent events well serves an analysis:
March 14, 1989 The accident underlying the suit occurs.
*284June, 1990 Counsel for appellant commences negotiations with Allstate Insurance Company, the carrier for appellee.
January 22, 1991 Counsel for appellant forwards to the Prothonotary by mail (1) a complaint, (2) a check in the amount of $60.50 for payment of the filing fee of the Prothonotary, and (3) a check in the amount of $27.08 in payment of the fee for service of the complaint by the Sheriff. Counsel fails to comply with the Berks County requirement that a particular form concerning service be presented to the Sheriff with the other material.
January 23, 1991 Counsel for appellant forwards to Allstate Insurance Company a copy of the Complaint which had been forwarded to the Prothonotary to commence this suit.
January 24, 1991 The Prothonotary receives the foregoing materials.
March 14, 1991 The two-year statute of limitations applicable to the suit initiated by appellant against appellee expires.
March 21, 1991 Counsel for appellant (1) files with the Prothonotary a praecipe to reinstate the Complaint, and (2) delivers to the Sheriff the form required in Berks County.
April 2, 1991 The Sheriff completes service upon appellee.
The lead expression quite appropriately relies upon the decisions of this Court in Farinacci v. Beaver County Industrial Development Authority, 510 Pa. 589, 511 A.2d 757 (1986), and Lamp v. Heyman, 469 Pa. 465, 366 A.2d 882 (1976), and on the declaration that a complainant must refrain “from a course of conduct which serves to stall in its tracks the legal machinery he has just set in motion.” Lamp v. Heyman, supra at 478, 366 A.2d at 899. It merits mention that appellant here, unlike the complainant in Lamp who proceeded by writ of summons, filed a complaint which fully expressed the nature and details of the cause of action, and, further unlike the complainant in Lamp, provided for delivery of a *285copy of the complaint to the sheriff for service and delivered to the sheriff a check in payment of the fee for service. Thus, appellant did not engage in the particular conduct which the Supreme Court specifically described as serving “to stall in its tracks the legal machinery”.
The author of the lead opinion also conducts a quite scholarly examination of the decision of this Court in Leidich v. Franklin, 394 Pa.Super. 302, 575 A.2d 914 (1990), allo. denied, 526 Pa. 636, 584 A.2d 319 (1990). I quickly accompany the author as his examination moves to a bright focus upon the following portions of that decision of this Court:
(1) one’s “good faith” effort to notify a defendant of the institution of a lawsuit is to be assessed on a case-by-case basis; and (2) the thrust of all inquiry is one of whether a plaintiff engaged in a “course of conduct” forestalling the legal machinery put in motion by his/her filings.
Leidich v. Franklin, supra at 311, 575 A.2d at 918.
[W]e find that the defect in service has not affected any substantial rights of the defendants, nor is there any allegation that the defendants were prejudiced by the manner in which they received notice of the lawsuit.... More importantly, consistent with Lamp’s teachings, we cannot in good conscience equate the plaintiff attorney’s actions with a “course of Conduct which serve[d] to stall” the machinery of justice.
Leidich v. Franklin, supra at 313, 575 A.2d 914. The illumination there provided compels me, however, to conclude:
That the several steps undertaken by appellant in this case qualifies as a “good faith” effort.
That the defect in service did not affect any substantial right of appellee.
That the lethargic presentation of the appropriate form to the sheriff, in light of all the other steps completed by counsel for appellant, does not demonstrate “a course of conduct which serve[d] to stall in its tracks the legal machinery he has just set in motion”.
*286Thus it is that I would reverse the order of the trial court and restore to appellant the right to his day in court.1

. Nor am I persuaded that the decision of this Court in Green v. Vinglas, 431 Pa.Super. 58, 635 A.2d 1070 (1993), controls disposition of the instant appeal since there exists an essential factual disparity between the two cases, specifically, the plaintiff in Green (1) did not commence the litigation until the terminal breath of the statute of limitations, (2) commenced the litigation by summons and not by complaint, (3) commenced the litigation in a form of quite uncertain venue, and even then (4) failed to conform to local practices with regard to the payment of the fees due the sheriff. Thus, there was valid and abundant basis for the conclusion in Green that the plaintiff fell short of a “good faith” effort to notify the respondent of a lawsuit.