Court Opinion

ID: 9753792
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 19:29:37.036152+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:54:41.564571
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
Me. Justice Robeets:
The majority today attempts to establish an exception to Reynolds Metals Co. v. Berger, 423 Pa. 360, 223 A. 2d 855 (1966). This Court in Reynolds quashed an appeal from a stay order of a common pleas court pending the disposition of a previously filed case in a United States district court and held such an order interlocutory and therefore unappealable absent specific statutory authorization.
Despite dictum in Reynolds intimating that such an order might have been appealable under the Act of March 5, 1925, P. L. 23, §1, 12 P.S. §672, in my opinion neither Reynolds nor the case at bar can reasonably be held governed by that act, which provides in essence : “Wherever . . . the question of jurisdiction over the defendant or of the cause of action ... is raised in the court of first instance, it shall be preliminarily de*612termined by the court . . .; and tbe decision may be appealed ... as in cases of final judgments.” It is apparent that this act is irrelevant to the instant case for the issue of jurisdiction has never been presented to the court below, a precondition necessary under the act. As a matter of fact, there does not appear to be any disagreement on the issue of jurisdiction either by the parties or the court below. Nor can it be inferred from the stay order that the court below believes it had none, for such a conclusion would be directly controverted by the stay order itself which merely suspends proceedings pending disposition of the federal action or “until further order of this court.” It certainly cannot be argued that this represents to any degree an abdication of jurisdiction or a finding that none exists.
The majority, however, chooses not to address itself to that issue, instead proposing that this order is appealable because it works a substantial deprivation of the rights of appellant due to a delay in prosecuting its state action. The majority’s position is that, since a patent has a limited life, any period during which appellant is deprived of the use of a patent to which it is entitled represents irreparable harm. This is simply not the case. In the first place, the remedy afforded by the provisions governing damages in instances of patent infringement is broad enough to compensate for any damages suffered by appellant stemming from the alleged infringement by appellee.1 Ad*613ditionally, even if there is a substantial deprivation as the majority holds, this deprivation is due at least in part to the conduct of appellant, who must share the responsibility for the protracted negotiations and ensuing delay. It is a somewhat compromising position to argue a substantial deprivation due at least in part to the conduct of the party now claiming such deprivation.
Finally, even if we assume that there is the deprivation upon which the majority bases its decision, and that the conduct of appellant does not preclude him from obtaining relief, the decision affording such relief suffers from a noticeable lack of. clarity in both the establishment and application of whatever standards seem to be implicit in its decision. In other words, the essence of the majority’s decision seems to be that when a substantial deprivation can be established as the result of what would otherwise be an interlocutory order, that order becomes appealable. There is no attempt by the majority to define or suggest exactly what constitutes siich “substantial deprivation.” I am convinced that there is no merit in the creation by the majority of an area of appealable orders contingent upon “substantial deprivation” which may be produced by a delay in litigation. Heretofore we have wisely adhered to a.rule that the action of the court below must constitute a dismissal of the action; to transmute this concept into a “substantial deprivation” is to ignore the very basis of the unappealable interlocutory order doctrine, i.e., the prevention of piecemeal litigation.2 Furthermore, the majority’s failure to delineate *614the contours of its new rule will result in an unwarranted plethora of litigation both here and below. I would therefore quash this appeal.3
Mr. Chief Justice Bell and Mr. Justice Musmanno join in this dissenting opinion.

 See 35 U.S.C. §284: “Upon finding for the claimant the court shall award the claimant damages adequate to compensate for the infringement, but in no event less than a reasonable royalty for the use made of the invention by the infringer, together with interest and costs as fixed by the court. When the damages are not found by a jury, the court shall assess them. In either event the court may increase the damages up to three times the amount found or assessed.”

 I cannot distinguish, on the majority’s rationale of “substantial deprivation” created by a delay in litigation, other cases involving delays such as the grant of a continuance or the refusal to advance a case on the trial list, eases which will soon present attempts to find shelter in the majority’s new doctrine.

 Whether the federal action would have a significant effect on the outcome of the state litigation need not concern us here. For this would merely go to the wisdom of issuing the stay order itself, which, at this juncture of the litigation, should not be before the Court.