Court Opinion

ID: 9540765
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:19:45.086597+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:00:17.401692
License: Public Domain

DISSENTING OPINION BY
KLEIN, J.:
¶ 1 The majority finds venue in Philadelphia because it concludes that the record supports the finding that F & CC’s registered address is in Philadelphia. While I agree that this would be sufficient to create venue in Philadelphia County, I do not believe that the record supports this con-elusion. Accordingly, I agree with the decision of two distinguished trial judges, the Honorable Mark I. Bernstein and the Honorable Joseph I. Papalini, that there is no venue in Philadelphia. Therefore, I am constrained to dissent.
¶ 2 I agree with the following statement of Judge Bernstein:
The only support [for the proposition that there is a registered office in Philadelphia] was a copy of a document from the Department of State, stating [F & CC’s] date of incorporation under the laws of the Commonwealth, August 7, 1957, and its continued existence as a Pennsylvania corporation. This document includes no corporate address. Plaintiffs also provided two pages from the Pennsylvania Department of State website which indicated 5600 Greene Street, Philadelphia, as the corporation’s address upon incorporation. Whether or not a website may be accepted as authoritative, the document does not purport to show any present address. [FN 3. The Court is unaware of any authority for accepting a webpage as accurate, and even so, the webpage here does not show requisite data to support plaintiffs argument.] Indeed, when Plaintiffs agent attempted to serve [F & CC] at the Philadelphia address, the defendant was not found. In fact the service agent affirmatively noted that the site was occupied by a beauty salon. [FN 4. There is no indication that the corporation was ever properly served, *50but that matter is irrelevant to any issue presented herein.] Evaluated in comparison with affirmative sworn testimony, the Court concludes there is no continued presence of the corporation in Philadelphia.
Trial Court Opinion, 4/8/04, at 4.
¶ 3 As noted, the certified document from the Department of State does not show any address for F & CC. The web page only shows a filing date of August 7, 1957, and then an address at 5600 Greene Street, Philadelphia. While recognizing that the Internet is a wonderful source of information, it also may contain incomplete or incorrect information. We have no idea when the website was established or how frequently it is updated. There is no provision to take judicial notice that F & CC had a registered office in Philadelphia after the 1950s.
¶4 If we were going to take judicial notice of every website, we could just as well take judicial notice of the reverse directory found at www.whitepages.com, which shows no office for F & CC at 5600 Greene Street, but rather lists two people who have no known connection to F & CC or this litigation.
¶ 5 Of course, I do not purport to say that we should take www.whitepages.com as gospel, but neither should we take an unexplained website of the Department of State as gospel.
¶ 6 Because I agree with Judges Bernstein and Papalini that there is no competent evidence showing that F & CC had a registered office in Philadelphia County at the time of the accident, I dissent.